
ChssJBXj 

Book ...XI 

(opyrtelit \'° 



COPYKIGIIT DEPOSIT. 



THE HOLY VIATICUM OF LIFE 
AS OF DEATH 




THE LIVING BREAD 
"Lord, give us always this Bread." — St. 



THE HOLY VIATICUM OF 
LIFE AS OF DEATH 



BY 
REV. DANIEL A. DEVER, Ph.D., D.D. 



NEW YORK CINCINNATI CHICAGO 

BENZIGER BROTHERS 

PRINTERS TO THE PUBLISHERS OP 

HOLY APOSTOLIC SEE BENZIGER'S MAGAZINE 

1911 



<: 



Wbil Obstat. 

Remy Lafort, 

Censor Librorum. 



Imprimatur. 

►PJohn M. Farley, 

Archbishop of New York. 



New York, March 10, 1911. 



Copyright, 1911, by benziger brothers 



; CI. A 2<A- 



PREFACE 

The memory of some simple hymn, — • 
still wholly unknown to the writer, — but 
concerning the gentle Saint Stanislaus, 
is amongst the earliest and most vivid of 
his childhood's recollections; and its 
faintly persistent echoes led in later years 
to an eager search into this seraphic 
saint's most wondrous life history, that 
most marvelous narrative of innocence fed 
from on high; and this entrancing study 
resulted, in its turn, in a deep and fond 
affection for this angelic youth; an affec- 
tion which may be epitomized in the fact 
that for a long period the reading of his 
beautiful death-scene closed each toil- 
some day.' Still later, the untold priv- 
ilege of many years in Rome, some as a 
priest of God, permitted a sacred famil- 



4 Preface 

iarity with the glorified saint's sanctified 
memorials, and often allowed even the 
celebration of Mass, the consecration of 
the ineffable "Viaticum Vita? Mortisque," 
the "Holy Viaticum of Life as of Death,'' 
right over the sacred remains it had so 
often and so wondrously vivified and sus- 
tained during their lonesome earthly wan- 
derings; and the subsequent years of 
continuous priestly activity, with its 
necessarily continued observance of souls 
that faltered and fell, or that struggled 
and rose, have not dulled, but have deep- 
ened, all these multiplied thoughts of 
life's testing problems and of their in- 
stant solution in that beautiful soul's 
most heavenly power. These pages, 
therefore, though few and brief, still 
fondly record a life's long impressions, 
the purest delight of its loftier moments, 
a star, never wholly eclipsed, of days that 
were overcast. And now, on the verge 
of the weakening years that lead with- 
out joy to the grave, the need and the 



Preface 5 

power of life's only sufficient Viaticum 
form well-nigh the same pondering 
mind's only study, the same soul's only 
refuge, and the same heart's only peace; 
so that youth's early thoughts of a saint 
and of his Heavenly Food have returned, 
in intensified power, with its earliest love, 
to cheer life's fast-sinking hours, and to 
give them a strength they need. 

If, therefore, the wonderful goodness 
of God should ever be so kind to me 
as to deign, kind soul, — who art, and ever 
must remain, all unknown to me, — to 
bring this little book to your compassion- 
ate gaze when I am gone, I deeply trust 
that you will prize at least its simple his- 
tory, instinct, as it is, with the most sacred 
emotions of at least one human heart and 
one trying human life ; not forgetting, per- 
haps, to breathe an earnest prayer for him 
whose now chill fingers penned these 
very words for you one lonely night, after 
spending many others on those that fol- 
low. He found solace and strength in 



G Preface 

trying to weave their mystic beauty to- 
gether. May you find equal peace in dis- 
engaging their deeper meanings, as your 
delicately considerate study gently draws 
their tangled web apart; and may heaven 
give the full response, in your case, and 
in mine, to all that struggles faintly for 
just expression here. 

Washington, D. C, 
February, 1911. 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

PREFACE ........ . L .] w -.. . 3 

PRELIMINARY 11 



I. A THRENODY 

li O Saving Host, that openest heaven's gate." — The 

"O Salutaris" 15 



II. RETROSPECTIVE 

"Who bringeth forth out of his treasure new things 

and old."— Matt. xiii. 52 . ' 20 



III. BEYOND THE VEIL 

"Have the gates of death been opened to thee, and 
hast thou seen the darksome doors?" — Job 
xxxviii. 17 27 



IV. THE PRESENT HOUR 

"The foe's fierce battles press, 

Give strength, and bear us aid." — The "O Sa- 
lutaris" 36 



V. AN INVITATION 

"The wise man . . . shall pass into strange 
countries: for he shall try good and evil among 
men." — Ecclus. xxxix. 5 44 

7 



8 Contents 

VI. EVENING 

PAGE 

"And when evening me, he went forth out of 
the city."— Mark xi. lo 55 

VII. A MIDNIGHT JOURNEY 
"And the Lamb is the lamp thereof."— Apoc. xxi. 23 62 

VIII. IX THE DARKXESS 

-WHO is this that eometh from Edom, with dyed gar- 
ments from Bo:>ra?" — Isaias lxiii. 1 . . . .69 

IX. A LIGHT FROM HEAVEN 
"Who is . . . this beautiful one?" — Isaias lxiii. 1 77 

X. THE PILGRIM'S COUCH 

"He was clothed with a garment sprinkled with 

blood."— Apoc. xix. 13 86 

XI. PEACE THROUGH SUFFERIXG 
"Not as the world giveth, do I give." — John xiv. 27 . 94 

XII. THE HOLOCAUST 

"There thou shalt offer him for an holocaust upon 
one of the mountains which I will shew thee." — 
Gen. xxii. 2 104 

XIII. THE AAVAKEXIXG 

"I adjure you, . . . by the roes and the harts of 
the field, that you make not the beloved to 
awake." — Canticle of Canticles ii. 7 . . . . 109 

XIV. THE MORXIXG PATHWAY 

"For he hath given his amrels charge over thee." — 
Pi Im ic. 7 120 



Contents 9 

XV. VIATICUM VITAE pAGE 

"If any one love Me, . . . We will come to him." 

—John xiv. 23 127 



XVI. PLEADINGS 

"As ... I live by the Father: so he that eateth 

Me, the same also shall live by Me." — John vi. 58 140 

XVII. FALLING SHADOWS 

"And he shall know his place no more." — Psalm cii. 

16 151 



XVIII. VIATICUM MORTIS 

"To enlighten them that sit in darkness, and in the 

shadow of death."— Luke i. 79 161 



XIX. PILGRIMS OF EMMAUS 

"Stay with us, because it is towards evening . . . 

and He went in with them." — Luke xxiv. 29 . .171 



THE HOLY VIATICUM OF 
LIFE AS OF DEATH 

PRELIMINARY 

An introduction not wholly, perhaps, 
unfitted for the following pages may, it 
is hoped, be found in the simple state- 
ment of fact that, as the years have 
stretched their trying course, the old and 
most expressive idea of life as a journey 
linked itself ever more and more closely in 
the mind of the writer with that infinitely 
significant Christian concept, the Holy 
Viaticum; and that both, thus united, took 
further and more definite form in his 
thought as they found a spontaneous ex- 
pression of exquisite grace in the marvel- 
ous life of Saint Stanislaus Kostka; a men- 

11 



12 Pre&minc 

tal development due without doubt to the 
fact that this beaut; :it's most typical 

act of high Christian perfection was pre- 
cisely a journey of hundreds and hundreds 
of miles marked by most wonderful Holy 
Communions; an action thus serving to 
lize fullv a Christian life-iournev 
on earth sustained by a heavenly food. 
Around this central conception, by a kind 
of instinctive and most pleasing conver- 
gence, there gathered the more prominent 
features of the saint's general life, a life 
rendered wholly celestial by the same sac- 
ramental means: and this blending of 
holiest beauty, human with divine, has 
here been em :ly prefaced and fol- 

lowed by some further related ideas which 
it naturally brought in its beautiful train. 
There sen no attempt at severe log- 

ical sequence or rigorous didactic instruc- 
tion, since the Sa i »r's own gentle desire, 1 
expressed in His km amental ap- 

;L has seemed better fitted for the 

'*9. 



Preliminary 13 

heart's instant returning affection than 
for cold intellectual action on the part of 
the mind. It only remains to be added 
that, in fullest accord with this unavoid- 
ably lofty, yet uncritical, unquestioning 
trend of the thought, every word thus un- 
studiously written must now be left here 
in its present form, like a voiceless 
jnarble angel in some silent wayside fane, 
beside the lonely tabernacle of Him whose 
infinite love it has, through no fault of 
its own, so fondly, yet vainly, sought to 
express. We ourselves still must onward 
wander, along earth's cruel pathways, 
to seek and to find the crimson traces 
pf those sacred feet once so deeply 
wearied and so deeply wounded, like our 
own, in the noisy outside world; still 
seeking and still finding our only rest 
and our only strength where He Himself 
reposes, in each more distant sanctuary 
that so blessedly marks the ever more 
arid reaches of life's otherwise desperate, 
hopeless way, till we sink at last at His 



14 Preliminary 

opened side by the brink of life's last 
deep and darkling void; finding there, 
with the shadows falling fast around us, 
and in the pure ecstasy of affections 
chastened and refined, the glorious reality 
so faintly figured forth in these fond ex- 
pressions of earlier, more impetuous love, 
uttered by a more vehement heart in the 
leaping ardors of the long ago. 



I. A THRENODY 



'O Salutaris Hostia, 
Quae coeli pandis ostium." 1 



Foe "Death/' though the last word, is 
still the first thought, of this, our sadly, 
yet sweetly, suggestive title; since its 
primal term, the mystic "Viaticum," once 
dear to the solitary traveler's anxious 
heart, as meaning the needful provision 
for his lonely way, has risen, in its own 
long journey through the centuries, to an 
import incomparably more tender than 

i "O saving Host, 

That openest heaven's gate." — The "0 Salutaris." 

n 



16 A Threnody 

even this most kindly and thoughtful sig- 
nificance of its ancient Latin use. It has 
become, it is true, the sombre synonym of 
death's supremely saddened hour; but it 
has also become the glorious symbol of a 
deathless Hope that can make that last, 
dread hour triumphant, and change its 
naturally despairing sorrow into the 
highest supernatural joy. At first, this 
solemn word falls upon the ear, only as 
the ominous knell of life's dark close; as 
the inexorable, even though sacred, por- 
tent and pressage of its utter, over- 
whelming ruin, its seemingly complete 
destruction and annihilation. It tells us 
of man's deepest and most helpless sor- 
row, of his one great irreparable woe, the 
inconsolable grief that shrouds the piti- 
ful end of his fitful earthly existence. 
The first whispered tones of the Holy 
Viaticum now inevitably bring with them 
the unutterable sorrow of life's last fare- 
well, the hopeless agonies of dissolution, 
and the pale, icy hues of death. They tell 



A Threnody 17 

of a father, a brother, stumbling weakly 
forth from a threshold that shall never 
know him more ; of some gentle soul, per- 
haps, surrounded in vain by every re- 
source and every solace that wealth or 
love can give; of some lonely outcast, it 
may be, leaving a cold and hated world 
to which he can never again direct even 
one last, lingering, resentful glance. All 
holy, therefore, though it be, this now so 
sadly sacred word seems at first to chill 
the very sunshine, and to cast a sombre 
gloom even over nature's fairest scene. 

But later, and after the first unavoid- 
able desolation of departing life's last, 
despairing sorrow, a higher, a spiritual, 
significance steals upon us, like the deep 
chastened tones of some distant cathedral 
tower; and as its sacred beauty sinks 
softly to the depths of the soul and lulls 
each startled sense, we seem to see the hid- 
den Sacrament of the Altar leaving its al- 
most unbroken seclusion, and hastening, 
in the hands of the silently moving priest, 



18 A Threnody 

to some poor sufferer's bedside, there to 
enter his sinking heart and fainting soul, 
and thus become their strength and their 
support in the last, dark night of time 
and in the even more dread white flash 
of eternity's pitiless, searching day. In 
thought we see the glazing eye and fail- 
ing heart that now seem so far from this 
world, only because they are so very near 
another; that sink so irresponsive to all 
their ordinary allurements and attach- 
ments, only because they now discern a 
higher light, a purer beauty, and a 
deeper meaning, than any this world can 
give; and we instinctively turn with the 
highest hope and a holy exultation to the 
sacred Viaticum thus borne to become 
the Divine Interpreter of these dread mys- 
teries and the Divine Companion of the 
fearful way. A sanctified sadness, deeply 
touched with this lofty hope and heavenly 
consolation, settles down upon the heart; 
and, unconsciously, we think of ourselves, 
and ask ourselves timidly, when, and 



A Threnody 19 

where, shall death and its great Con- 
soler find us, when earth is fading away, 
and eternity is already setting its indel- 
ible seal upon our wavering, fluttering 
souls. 

Our answer, indeed, would be dark- 
est despair, did we not feel that this 
gentle Viaticum will be with us, as our 
infinitely kind and powerful Guide; but 
with it, we feel that no foe can molest 
us; that our passage from earth, though 
sad, shall be safe; and thus its last echoes 
linger sweet on the ear, breathing softly 
of heaven's high beauty; and they rest in 
our uttermost souls, as an inestimable 
treasure reserved for our saddest of days ; 
so that, with this beautiful word, the first 
gloom of the darkest of nights gives place 
to the thought of an eternally glorious 
dawn; to a vision of peace and of beauty 
in heaven, in the love and the presence of 
God. 



II. RETROSPECTIVE 



"Qui profert de thesauro 
suo nova et Vetera/* x 



In this higher and holier view of the 
Most Sacred Viaticum, as in so many 
of the other priceless heritages of the 
Church, we do but imitate our distant 
forefathers in the Faith, who saw the deep 
beauty of the Latin word and its fitness 
to rise to an incomparably higher signifi- 
cance. And we do well, in thus follow- 
ing the unerring instinct of the earliest 

i "Who bringeth forth out of his treasure new things 
and old."— Matt. xiii. 52. 

20 



Retrospective 21 

Christian heart, by linking, as we do, this 
ancient word with life's last, critical hour; 
since all its primitive uses deeply conspire 
to suggest and explain the sacred choice. 
For, in the old, old days, before the 
Church itself had even begun to exist, the 
pagan peoples had given to this now 
supremely sanctified term many most con- 
soling and most kindly significant mean- 
ings, which still remain very deep and 
most precious in the wealth of their 
heavenly beauty and power, and still ca- 
pable of a true and most proper applica- 
tion here, in the very midst of the 
mournful scene that has risen, almost un- 
consciously, before our sadly pensive 
minds. For, at first, the ancient "viati- 
cum" stood for the weary soldier's pay 
after his days of battles ; after costly fields, 
sometimes, it may be, laxly, yet, on the 
whole, faithfully, disputed; and often 
right desperately and right nobly won. 
It later meant for him, when his last cam- 
paigns were over, the means of returning 



22 Retrospective 

home, of reaching once more his vine- 
clad cottage, of rejoining, after many 
weary, blood-stained years, such as were 
left of the loved ones for whom all his 
toils were so ardently undertaken and so 
inflexibly sustained; and for whom, per- 
haps, his own warrior blood had been more 
than once most willingly and most prod- 
igally shed. Later still, it came to mean 
the actual provision for his homeward 
journey, the simple fare rudely placed in 
his torn and discolored wallet for the 
more pressing needs of his last long 
march; and it finally passed far beyond 
the soldierly ranks altogether, and indi- 
cated, in a general way, whatever could 
sustain and console any wandering exile's 
weakness, a store for any lonely traveler's 
way. And under all these most varied 
and most touching aspects, as no one can 
fail to perceive, unnumbered most ap- 
propriate and suggestive analogies arise, 
almost unbidden, between these kindly 
senses of the ancient term, applied where 



Retrospective 23 

they centre now, around life's last, deci- 
sive hour, and the thought, for the same 
dread moment, of the Blessed Sacrament 
of the Altar; which thus becomes the re- 
ward of struggle and danger, the support 
of the soldier's return, the Bread of the 
pilgrim's pathway, the means of reaching 
our heavenly home, the most sacred store 
for our own last, great journey, the beau- 
teous "Viaticum Mortis," the strength and 
the solace of otherwise inconsolable death. 
For what, in very truth, is that parting 
to which the Holy Viaticum comes but the 
close of a long and bitter struggle borne 
with at least substantial fidelity? Is it 
not the mortally wounded soldier falling 
at last and dying, but still under the ban- 
ner of his first and faithful choice? Is it 
not the first, deeply yearning effort of 
the wounded soul to regain its native 
land on high, a seeking to rejoin those 
kindred spirits from whom its whole life 
here below has been but a painful and 
grievous separation, none the less bitter, 



24 Retrospective 

because half unconsciously borne? Ah, 
yes! It is all this, and much more, and in 
an incomparably higher sense, than we 
can ever fully conceive in our at present 
heavily clouded earthly minds, or express 
in our feeble earthly language. Surely, 
for the poor, falling soldier, and for his 
broken pathway home, we may, and 
should, remember, in holy union with the 
incomparably greater specific spiritual 
significances of the Sacrament, these 
other lesser aspects, yet most true and 
most beautiful meanings, of reward for 
his final struggle and of aid for his fate- 
ful way. For these kindly, thoughtful uses 
of the ancient term work no injury to the 
greater sanctities of the Adorable Eucha- 
rist, or to the unparalleled spiritual beauty 
associated with our first sacred thought 
of the Most Holy Viaticum. They do 
but gracefully wreathe it round, like the 
most tender and delicate ivy, and only 
serve to illustrate in the most deeply and 
gently appealing manner, what we might 



Retrospective 25 

be permitted to call this magnificent 
Sacrament's more humble and more 
human aspects. No term could be more 
appropriate, and no 'Viaticum" could be 
conceived more fully or more tenderly 
adapted for the soul's every requirement. 
Indeed, it was precisely because of these 
so thoughtfully consoling ancient purports 
of this now eternal word that there came 
and there remained the commanding 
thought of death ; and that all were finally 
and most fittingly crystallized into their 
present consecrated form of sacred sacra- 
mental association with sanctified death's 
all-beautiful hour, and with the silent 
Watcher who is the secret of its calmness 
and its peace. So far, therefore, from 
derogating in any degree from the in- 
finite dignity of the great Sacrament with 
which they are now inseparably associated, 
they do very much to give a truer and a 
deeper appreciation of all that is meant 
by that sacred name, the "Holy Viati- 
cum." They aid most efficiently in caus- 



26 Retrospective 

ing it to become for us what it really is in 
itself, the sweet harbinger and synonym 
of the soul's last, victorious struggle, of 
its silent yet decisive triumph, of the 
anxious heart's last yet complete re- 
assurance and solace, of the faithful 
soldier's glorious final battle, of his last 
earthly recompense and his high reward. 
Surely, this personal visit of his Chief — 
and such a Chief — may well rekindle even 
the humbled warrior's death-dimmed eye, 
and form the single, all-sufficient requital 
for toils and for sorrows that seemed so 
long unheeded and unknown! And 
surely, thoughts such as these should do 
something to smooth the cold white pil- 
low of our own last earthly repose. 



III. BEYOND THE VEIL 



"Numquid apertae sunt 
tibi portae mortis, et ostia 
tenebrosa vidisti?" 1 



A further truth, also, and one most 
beautiful and significant, too, lies deeply 
imbedded here ; for, were we still to follow 
the all but inspired instincts of the days 
when the Faith was new, we should readily 
see that from this final wealth of sacred 
significance which thus clustered around 
the Blessed Sacrament's last visit to the 

i "Have the gates of death been opened to thee, and 
hast thou seen the darksome doors?" — Job xxxviii. 17. 

27 



28 Beyond the Veil 

soul, and so gracefully interwove itself 
into the rapidly changing texture of 
human life at man's departure from this 
world, the Christian mind and heart, again 
not alien to classic ideals that involved 
any deep or important thought, adopted 
and refined that concept — the cry of 
nature, as of grace — which retains the 
idea of death as a journey, as an exile's 
pathway of supreme trial and danger, as 
a need for some heavenly guidance and 
some supernatural support. Nor was this 
first deep instinct of the pagan heart at 
fault, nor was its more lofty Christian 
form deceived. For death is, indeed, a 
most momentous journey, the greatest that 
we shall ever take. Its earthly term we 
know, but its farther goal is far, very far, 
away. Here, it is most abject and lowly; 
but its further reaches stretch forth be- 
yond our gaze to things of supremest im- 
port. It is a setting forth that shall never 
know even a faltering, tardy return. It 
is a pathway that leads from the narrow 



Beyond the Veil 29 

confines of time, through shrouded weep- 
ing valleys, to the white gleaming sands 
of eternity's limitless sea ; through murky 
realms of unknown gloom to silently 
breaking billows that leap from no further 
shore; to the sleeping silver sheen of still 
waters that no keel shall ever plough; to 
an ocean which frowns under vast seem- 
ing battlements, but which laves no but- 
tressed keep. And still it stretches loftily 
and steadily on, through endless and in- 
effable marvels, ever rising more and more 
swiftly in its far-glittering flight, to vast 
hidden peaks incomparably more glorious 
than where the lonely mountain eagle 
wings his regal way; and it plunges at 
last, lost in its own very magnificence, into 
wide heaven-wrought splendors rolling in 
impetuous majesty onward, and ever cre- 
ating new worlds as they go, until the un- 
earthly, ethereal grandeur of its mystic, 
transfiguring charm, flames, unconfined 
and immensurate, across all the infinite, 
ecstatic splendors of that Perfect Life 



30 Beyond the Veil 

which gleams with endless beauty, and for- 
ever flames forth the all-sufficient answer 
to highest human thought and purest hu- 
man aspiration — or, alas! it leaps to the 
loss of all these in the finally fatal eclipse 
of eternity's hopeless night! Before this 
dread alternative, the parting soul pauses 
for a moment, then tests the wide un- 
known ; and only God can say whither its 
further flight has tended. 

But upon these darker possibilities we 
touch most unwillingly here. It is true 
that it is they that, in the last analysis, lend 
its most dreadful import to anything that 
we can say of death; and that they ex- 
plain, with utmost eloquence, the need and 
the value of the Most Holy Viaticum. But 
we are engaged now more especially with 
the kinder aspects of our sacred theme. 
We are dwelling upon the gentle, forgiv- 
ing Savior and His last repose in a trial- 
tossed yet faithful soul; in a broken, it 
may be, yet humble and contrite heart; a 
heart that He Himself has said shall 



Beyond the Veil 31 

never be confounded; a heart, therefore, 
and a soul that never shall feel, in their 
higher powers, the fatal touch of the de- 
stroying angel's hand; but shall pass un- 
harmed, at their Savior's side, through all 
that even death can bring, through even 
the darkest and gloomiest passes of death 
itself. We are thinking now of the Good 
Samaritan who came from a far country, 
who has Himself trodden all this world's 
shrouded pathways in search of our 
anguished souls, and who has sought them 
even through the very gates of death itself, 
through death in the utter abandonment 
of His Heavenly Father; an abandon- 
ment possible, permitted, and borne, only 
because there was a God to endure it ; 
only because the Good Shepherd wished, 
as it were, to be sure that no poor, stricken 
souls were lost in a dereliction deeper 
than His own ; that none were wandering, 
affrighted and helpless, in the mystic lands 
beyond the fatal ford. Nay, we are think- 
ing of Him who chose this very death of 



32 Beyond the Veil 

bitterest rejection, precisely that we might 
have life and might have it more abun- 
dantly. 1 We are looking toward Him to 
whom the Church, in every Mass, cries 
out, "Son of the Living God, who by Thy 
death hast given life to the world!" To 
Him we look to span, with that eternal 
life here meant, the dark chasm that yawns 
before man's last earthly footstep, and 
from which our whole nature so power- 
fully recoils, at the farther brink of its 
earthly career; and it is thus precisely 
here that we all turn with hearts so deeply 
palpitating with the deepest of trust and 
the fondest of love to the Most Holy Vi- 
aticum, the sweet, gentle Guardian and 
Guide of our perilous way. 

Leaving, however, our path for a mo- 
ment, it has seemed to us well, though 
with diffidence, to recall, in connection with 
thoughts such as those that now rest in 
our minds, and in a kind of digression and 
pause, a few not wholly irrelevant words 

i John x. 10. 



Beyond the Veil 33 

in regard to the passing of a naturally 
gentle soul; words written by a most 
thoughtful poet of the ever romantic 
Southland, 1 one who himself has but 
recently passed from his own softly melo- 
dious measures of earth, through death's 
overshadowed pathways, to the higher and 
holier harmonies of heaven. It may seem 
that his lines should require some vague, 
implicit apology, because of their com- 
moner, earthly character; and yet it was 
felt that they seemed to enshrine, with a 
faultless grace, a thought far too precious 
to be lightly omitted here. 

"Death seemed afraid to wake her; 
For, traversing the deep, 
When home he came to take her, 
He kept her fast asleep. 

"And haply in her dreaming 
Of many a race to run, 
She woke, with rapture beaming, 
To find the voyage done/' 

i Rev. Father Tabb. 



34 Beyond the Veil 

These are gentle, reassuring thoughts; 
and even the most timorous soul, with the 
very Bread of the Angels for its sus- 
tenance, and in the intimate companion- 
ship of its Heavenly Guide, may well 
transfer to itself, with an infinitely 
higher meaning, and to the Sacred Viat- 
icum, in an incomparably higher sense, 
the simple words just quoted; for, al- 
though it is certain that, even without this 
glorious special aid, the kindly care fore- 
shadowed here would be not only realized, 
but would also be immeasurably surpassed, 
by the unfailing solicitude of God's or- 
dinary fatherly providence; yet we all 
know that the fainting soul scarce dares 
presume so much; and that, so long as 
humanity shall be stained and guilty and 
falling, so long as our failings loom large 
in the past's just perspective, so long as 
we cannot know that other, wondrous 
world, — so long shall we sigh for the per- 
sonal word of forgiveness at last, so long 
shall we yearn for the mighty yet gentle 



Beyond the Veil 35 

Viaticum, of which we have all so loved 
to speak, and which is placed here, as the 
very first word of all that the fondest of 
thought shall be able to find, or the pu- 
rest affection shall avail to inspire, con- 
cerning the most glorious of heaven's 
gifts and the most pressing and urgent 
of all human needs. Surely, death is a 
most momentous journey; and surely, 
Christ is most kind, in coming to be its 
Support and its Guide; and, surely, fond 
Christian hearts did well, in recognizing 
and in loving the Most Blessed Sacra- 
ment, under the supremely consoling 
guise of the Holy Viaticum, the Divine 
Companion of life's last journey, Death. 



IV. THE PRESENT 



'Bella premunt hostilia, 
Da robur, fer auxilium" x 



But there are journeys in life, not less 
than in death; journeys and pathways, 
too, of supremest trial and danger; 
journeys and moments in which the same 
heavenly guidance and the same heavenly 
strength are absolutely necessary for us, 
and necessary with an imperativeness 
that may even be said to surpass, under 
some aspects, that of death itself. In 

i "The foe's fierce battles press, 

Give strength, and bear us aid." — The "O Salutaris." 
36 



The Present 37 

that solemn hour, the presence of eternity 
is a safeguard that life's heedless pride 
forgets. At death, the incitements to 
evil have all but lost their power; in life, 
it is the incentives to virtue that fade so 
completely away; and the vague thought 
of some future repentance is too often 
only an additional ambush in which the 
poor soul receives its last blow. At 
death, our demoniac enemy has only 
his external resources and the beggarly 
subterfuge of a baseless despair; since 
startled nature then wholly abhors his now 
loathsome appeal; but in life, his ally is 
pleasure, and he is aided by many a dark 
foe from within. Where, think you, are 
the souls of the many destroyed? Is it 
on the still, narrow, timorous, trembling 
bed of death; or on the broad, open, ar- 
rogant, sensual plain of life? Are the 
hues of sin ghastly, or do they gleam with 
the pomp and the color of life? Our 
greatest foe is the body; where is it 
strongest, in life, or in death? No pos- 



38 The Present 

sible doubt can surround the true heart's 
unprejudiced answer. The unhappy- 
soul is most often ruined, before it reaches 
the portals of death. Surely, therefore, 
no one would seek to affirm that this 
perilous life, thus filled with every danger, 
does not need a celestial Viaticum, or 
that Christ need not come, until it is pass- 
ing away? A more accurate test would 
reveal our own selfish hearts as inspiring 
both death's undue trepidation and life's 
even more excessive assurance. Death 
holds no terrors, save those which life has 
placed in its hands. It is frightful only 
so far as our lives have been evil; and he 
is most sadly imprudent who guards not 
his life as his measure and standard of 
death, or deems it a task that he can ac- 
complish alone. No one who has taken 
even the first few paces in this troubled 
earthly existence, and certainly no one 
who has trodden through the weary years 
in its desolate pathways, can fail to feel 
that man's life in this world is truly a 



The Present 39 

warfare, 1 or that his days are those of 
constant trial and danger. Individual 
experience only too fully confirms this 
divinely annunciated primary truth; and 
also adds another equally important, and 
of equal divine promulgation, that God's 
help alone can turn our deadly peril into 
victory. Our earthly pathway is so con- 
stantly beset, and by so many mortal 
enemies, that heaven's own aid is in- 
dispensably necessary, since we ourselves 
are but ill equipped for so many insistent 
foes. And the divinely constituted aid 
for our life is precisely the same as the 
divinely constituted aid for our death. 
It is the same Blessed Sacrament, under 
the lamentably unfamiliar, nay, well-nigh 
unknown, yet withal most true and most 
beautiful, name of the "Viaticum of 
Life." Whatever, therefore, the heedless 
outside world may do, we, at least, 
should never forget this infinite Sacra- 
ment's present import and power. Its 

i Job vii. 1. 



40 The Present 

primary and principal, yet almost forgot- 
ten intention and efficacy, as the strength 
of our pathway while still here on earth, 
is not less indispensable for us than its 
strengthening presence at death. It is 
not less deep in the Savior's mind. In 
His all-wise and ever-thoughtful provi- 
dence, the constant Viaticum of Life 
forms the only proper preparation for the 
momentary Viaticum of Death. "Ex- 
cept you eat the flesh of the Son of man, 
and drink His blood, you shall not have 
life in you," * He said, and thus most 
clearly proclaimed the Adorable Sacra- 
ment of the Altar as the necessary sup- 
port of daily Christian life, not less than 
of pious, humble, Christian death; and 
surely, we should never attempt the un- 
grateful and useless task of seeking to 
prove His divine words untrue, by try- 
ing to live, any more than by daring to 
die, without His heavenly aid. Many, in- 
deed, are the aspects under which this 

i John vi. 54. 



The Present 41 

glorious Sacrament is the strength of our 
days upon earth, and the soul in their 
study is lost in the wealth of its love. 
The heart can here thread many beaute- 
ous pathways, finding ever new glories 
and splendors far exceeding its own even 
most loftily yearning demands. Any 
view of this Adorable Sacrament, there- 
fore, and any thought of the Most Holy 
Viaticum, which fails to include this 
whole circle of our Savior's universal 
beneficence, must remain hopelessly want- 
ing and wholly inadequate; since it ut- 
terly fails to recognize in Him the neces- 
sary support of daily life, not less than 
of instant death. While, then, we shall 
never forget the beauteous final signifi- 
cance of the Holy Viaticum, on which we 
have been so lovingly dwelling — nay, 
while we shall most fondly return to this 
very meaning, which has thus far so 
thrilled the very depths of our hearts — 
we shall, nevertheless, strive with even 
more of insistence and earnestness, now, 



42 The Present 

to speak more fully of that same Most 
Holy Viaticum, of that same Blessed 
Sacrament, in the more primal and less 
usual, though in nowise less true or less 
beautiful sense of strength and support 
for the greater peril and the greater need 
of the sorely tried earthly wayfarer; of 
solace and hope in the still earthly 
traveler's long, weary day; of protec- 
tion and guidance in the darkened and 
perilous pathways of present trial and 
sorrow; of divine companionship for dan- 
gerous earthly footsteps; of the neces- 
sary — yet oh! so happily and so calmly 
efficient — sustenance and strength of our 
fainting souls, in the sharp instant tests 
or the slow-torturing martyrdom of daily 
and hourly earthly existence, throughout 
the whole course of the soul's lonely exile 
in an alien and hostile world. For thus 
alone can we hope completely to justify, 
and with full symmetry to integrate, our 
entire beloved and inspiring title, which 
enshrines and enbosoms an infinite 



The Present 43 

thought, by showing our Divine Lord in 
the Blessed Sacrament to be, through its 
glorious all-embracing power, the one 
Support of all our earthly wanderings 
and of the steps that lead beyond; the 
sacred "Viaticum Vitse Mortisque," the 
"Holy Viaticum of Life as of Death." 



V. AN INVITATION 



"Sapiens • . . in ter- 
ram alienigenarum genti- 
um pertransiet: bona en- 
im et mala in hominibus 
tentabit." x 



In the fulfilment of this splendid de- 
sign — whose magnificence, indeed, might 
well induce even the angels to aid us — 
we are to speak, in the first place, of a 
journey in the ordinary, literal sense of 
that word; a journey with both its ter- 

i "The wise man . . . shall pass into strange coun- 
tries; for he shall try good and evil among men." — 
Ecclus. xxxix. 5. 

44 



An Invitation 45 

minals here on earth, though not, indeed, 
with manners or methods now grown so 
familiar to us all. And perhaps we 
should say once more that the lonely- 
traveler whose weary footsteps we are to 
follow is the youthful saint whom we men- 
tioned in our opening words, a seraph of 
heaven rather than a child of earth; no 
other, indeed, than the beautiful Saint 
Stanislaus Kostka. Our reason? The 
fact, as we also said there, that the in- 
delible memory of his angelic life linked 
itself in the mind, as gracefully as un- 
bidden, with the glorious thought of the 
Most Blessed Sacrament as a divine life- 
sustaining power; and that the beauti- 
ful bond, thus unconsciously formed, 
seemed far too sacred and too fair for 
the shattering touch of a thoughtless 
hand. For the life of this saint was un- 
doubtedly intended by heaven to give, in 
a most luminous manner, open to all, 
an engaging portrayal of the glorious 
effects wrought by the Most Adorable 



46 An Invitation 

Sacrament of the Altar in a soul truly 
filled with its love, and in a body con- 
tinually consecrated by its celestially 
refining and transfiguring presence. 
Saint Stanislaus Kostka, in his few, brief 
earthly hours, has left the imperishable 
memorial of an entire being in the ex- 
alted, ecstatic purity and beauty of this 
heavenly means; for his soul mirrored 
brightly what the Savior effects, even 
in life's lowly pathway, if the soul be 
but loving and true; and his beautiful, 
sanctified body ever seemed less of this 
earth than of heaven. The idea, there- 
fore, of Stanislaus lent itself prompt to 
the pondering mind in the thought here 
intended; since, as already observed, the 
one greatest act of his virtue was a lit- 
eral journey through earth's lonely 
scenes, through hundreds of wearying 
leagues of an alien's long exile, but sus- 
tained in a most wonderful manner by 
Communions brought from on high; a 
journey thus prefiguring clearly, in its 



An Invitation 47 

toil and its pain, each soul's lonely path; 
and showing, even more fully, by the 
fairest example, what the Savior designs 
as its heavenly solace and strength. 

It has, therefore, seemed well to invoke 
these more sweetly irresistible charms in 
preference to even the strictest, most un- 
answerable logic in support of the same 
lofty theme ; and to choose this marvelous 
life of a saint as a more natural form of 
expression for all we could ever hope to 
aver in relation with thoughts whose in- 
trinsic deep beauty makes their merest 
utterance difficult, if not wholly in vain; 
and which therefore requires example's 
most eloquent aid; setting forth, as we 
do, each gently fair incident as a phase of 
high grace that words could but faintly 
depict. And, were any still further vin- 
dication demanded, it could surely be 
found in the fact that this beautiful saint 
seems to stand, in the fullest of justice, 
as the one bright heavenly herald whose 
voice should give life to these words that 



48 An Invitation 

have owed their very existence to the 
most sacred emotions thus welling un- 
forced to the heart at the thought of his 
gentlest of souls. 

The courteous reader is, therefore, to 
be invited, if so be his tastes inclined, to 
forget the present, in favor of a time long 
since passed away. He is asked to leave, 
in spirit, his present, actual surroundings 
far behind ; in order to travel, in the same 
mystic manner, through scenes very dif- 
ferent and very far removed from these; 
in climes and amidst circumstances hav- 
ing but little in common with our own. 
He is requested to roll back the heavily 
clinging pages of human history, until 
they grow foully red again with the 
clotted life-blood of Central Europe in 
the latter half of the sixteenth cycle of 
our own momentous era. For it is in the 
older hemisphere that our story lies, and 
in a time of deadliest strife ; for what can 
more keenly whet the pitiless sword, or 
nerve to greater cruelty the quivering 



An Invitation 49 

arm that wields it, than the hell-born 
hates that always spring full-formed and 
accursedly immortal from even the very 
first throes of that blind, diabolical fury 
which we so strangely call religious wars? 
Frenzied doctrinal revolt — which some 
have called Reform — stalked those fair 
lands in those dread days, its eyes aflame, 
its red hands still uplifted, and its mad- 
dened cries ever resounding anew with 
fiendish triumph through the blackened 
and smouldering ruins hourly added to 
the wide devastation which it had already 
wrought over once peaceful cities and 
once verdant plains; its exulting shrieks 
rising to ever greater and greater fury, as 
it glanced, with burning eye, upon the still 
more bitter and more finally hopeless deso- 
lation of unnaturally ruptured families 
and of hostile though kindred hearts which 
everywhere followed its ruthless track of 
blood and fire, leaving upon all an en- 
during blight such as no savage horde 
could ever hope to equal in even the most 



50 An Invitation 

appalling ravages of its wild, ungovern- 
able career. 

Yes, to the very heart of Europe we 
must go; to where the purely sparkling 
head-waters of the Danube make the first 
querulous, diffident essays of their won- 
drous way, within the deep and cooling 
shadows of that great Forest so long sung 
and storied by wandering bard and stately 
chronicler in the most romantic accents 
of the great world's life. We must stand 
by the softly-palpitating silver stream, 
and note each faint, unconscious ripple, 
as heedless as unsullied, which marks 
each bright, unthought advance in the 
stately, majestic coursing which awaits it, 
on its way to the great central sea. And 
we must pass beyond the fretful fountains 
of the river. "We must follow its swell- 
ing yet still untarnished tide, and trace 
its softly-limpid branches to where they, 
too, were born; and whence they, flashing, 
leap from the frowning brow of that wide 
Bavarian plateau which forms the last 



An Invitation 51 

stern protest of the mighty Alps, as they 
sullenly sink to the German plain from 
their imperial Helvetian splendor. And 
we must traverse those historic lands. We 
must seek a gloriously, — and also, alas! a 
sadly, — famed city of the olden time; a 
city glorious with the splendid, imperish- 
able memorials of its ancient Roman 
foundation, and its early Christian Bish- 
opric continued for ages in beauty and 
power; sad, through its baleful promi- 
nence in the sordidly carnal revolt which 
so rudely threw back the gnomon of time, 
and, at a single stroke, rendered one-half 
of Europe hopelessly commonplace. For 
we must pass by forest and river and 
plain, in search of a gentle pilgrim who 
once stood here, and who must have wept, 
even more bitterly than we now weep, 
over the cruel double desolation which 
stretched so far at his feet. Even here, 
our journey shall not be completed; for, 
after we shall have gazed for a time upon 
the city's stately towers, funereal witnesses 



52 An Invitation 

of a greatness that is gone; after think- 
ing of all that they once signified and all 
they now deplore, — of centuries of mys- 
tic cathedral chants, of heaven-ascending 
clouds of fragrant beauty, and of the 
incomparably softer and sweeter incense 
of pure hearts inflamed with ecstatic ar- 
dors from thousands of ineffably Holy 
Communions; and, also, after thinking, 
alas! of present bleak hearts and of 
shamefully corrupted lives — after all this, 
we must turn away. For we shall find 
that our youthful refugee, not finding 
here what his love so eagerly sought, and 
not being able to bear even the slightest 
delay that would hold him from the object 
of a heaven-imposed task, as well as from 
the fulfilment of his own long cherished 
hope, has already resumed his painful 
journey. His weary feet, not finding 
where they might rest, did but touch these 
noisy ways, ere he again set forth, to seek 
the swift realization of his burning de- 
sires, and to satiate the devoted longings 



An Invitation 53 

which for years had torn his seraphically 
fervent soul. Thus, in a measure, we 
shall have shared his own disappointment, 
and so must share his further toil ; since it 
is he whom we have sought, and whom 
we have failed to find. Yet, it is an un- 
told privilege even to have stood where he 
has been, and we reck not our seemingly 
fruitless labor; for we wish to learn some 
of his heart's deepest lessons to-night, and 
none save those who have suffered can 
know a sufferer's soul. We still must fol- 
low those slender footsteps, which lead 
once more by the stealing streamlet's side, 
as it glides more softly onward, through 
calmer hills, as we turn once more to the 
blue rolling Danube's waters, which now, 
for the first time, seem to feel something 
of the imposing grandeur and deep exul- 
tation of the mighty course upon which 
they so lightly entered. The passers-by 
tell us of a gentle youth with alternately 
downcast and upward-gazing eyes who 
has bent his footsteps to a peaceful town 



54 An Invitation 

beyond the glistening waters. We feel 
that they thus speak of him whom we are 
seeking, and our eager gaze at once 
bridges the river to where the more mod- 
est domes of the humbler city rise on the 
farther bank of the storied stream. How 
little they know that they are blessed be- 
yond measure to-night, in the sacred pos- 
session of one of earth's few angels ! 



VI. EVENING 



"Et cum vespera facta 
esset egrediebatur de civi- 
tate" 



And yet, before taking our own de- 
parture, we still pause, for a time, held 
by some irresistible impulse; though the 
sun is fast sinking to its gorgeous decline 
in the west, and the shadows are falling 
where our footsteps must go. A lonely, 
half -unconscious, half -despairing sigh 
trembles upon our quivering lips, as the 

i"And when evening was come, he went forth out of 
the city." — Mark xi. 19. 

55 



56 Evening 

supremely significant vistas that seek the 
gleaming distance so far from our yearn- 
ing gaze are softly veiled by evening's 
first, delicate film ; while the slowly gather- 
ing darkness, linked with the ever deepen- 
ing silence, so sadly suggests the final 
night that is not very far from any soul. 
Yet still we linger, still despite the haste 
that would urge us on; for the thrall of 
the scene is passing strong upon us ; and, 
as we thus stand above the granitic Al- 
pine bases which we know to lie in eternal 
lethargy so far below us, — though not 
more low nor more lethargic than lie the 
fairest hopes and fairest aspirations of 
these now stricken lands — profoundest 
thoughts of many things that were, and 
are, and are, perhaps, to be, crowd in 
ghostly array upon us ; and saddened His- 
tory seems to emerge from the gathering 
night upon the gloomy mountain-side, and 
to weep over these heedless cities ; strangely 
like to another and greater Mourner long 
ago, who wept over a still more ancient 



Evening 57 

city in the still more distant past; and, 
the shadowy Presence slowly seems, alas! 
and again like Him, to trace, with droop- 
ing finger, an incomparably greater deso- 
lation still to come. 

Touched by the fading vision, our own 
deep thoughts grow deeper still, and 
their first sad reveries return. The sol- 
emn sounds of deep-toned minsters seem 
to struggle faintly to us from the centu- 
ries that are gone. Again, great organs 
softly breathe the sacred sweetness of 
their shadowy breasts, and once more the 
twinkling tapers gleam through the silent 
altar's perfumed mist. The Pure Obla- 
tion is offered again in many a faintly 
echoing cathedral, and youth and age 
once more receive the only Support that 
can sustain either. Surpliced acolytes 
at length precede the venerable priest, as 
he once more falters to the sacristy, his 
locks of snow less white than his pure and 
stainless heart. The adoring thousands 



58 Evening 

seem to rise from their knees before our 
very eyes, and to return to the simple yet 
sanctified joys of innocent, happy homes. 
And again, alas! a searing curse settles 
fatally over all, and a cold gray mist blots 
all the sacred beauty of the mystic scene. 
The solemn tollings are silent. The or- 
gan's voice has ceased, and an ominous 
calm forebodes the coming woe. Sud- 
denlv, the darkened scene flashes brilliant 
again, indeed; for dread lines of lurid 
light and bursts of leaping flame fiercely 
cleave the silent pall that had chilled our 
thought; and their message is of terror, 
not of joy. They mark, indeed, God's 
temple; but not the worship of His name. 
They rise from His holy altar, but only 
to show where its scattered ruins lie ; and 
the sinister clouds that roll heavily from 
their pathway mark man's lowering ha- 
tred, not the mounting incense of his 
prayer. Bright gleams ascend, indeed, 
from many humble, hidden homes; but 
their play is far too fierce for the fire- 



Evening 59 

side's innocent mirth. They rise from 
mountain and river and plain, but theirs is 
not the calm cheer of some simple common 
rejoicing; for they do but light the doom 
of hundreds of unhappy hamlets swiftly 
devoted to ruin, amidst the maddest orgies 
of unbridled religious ferocity. Men have 
rebelled against supernatural truth and 
against divinely imposed authority, and 
the nations flame with the insatiable fires 
that unholy passion has kindled. 

Oppressed and faint we stand, until 
startled again from our sad contempla- 
tion by the sun half dipped in what we 
know to be, despite their hopeless distance 
from our envious gaze, the ever rolling 
surges of the great Atlantic tides ; and we 
turn with untold sorrow to the parting 
splendor, so mournfully, yet gloriously, 
typical of what these lands once were, and 
of what they might have been; and also, 
alas ! of what they now are, when the col- 
orless sky has become everywhere sombre, 



60 Evening 

and the day's bright beauty is gone ; when 
the eventless gray mists of the night adapt 
themselves fully to the soulless routine of 
nothingness and of unrelieved earthiness 
which now degrades these anciently glori- 
ous realms; and which, in once noble na- 
tions, as in once honored men, has ever 
formed the dread, but fitting, penalty of 
the soul's revolt against its Maker, of its 
pitiful abandonment of the pure Manna 
of Heaven, and its fatal return to the cor- 
rupted and corrupting grossness of its de- 
based primal captivity. And still we stand 
and still we gaze, in saddest recollection 
and most ominous foreboding, until many 
of night's most sacred hours have been sol- 
emnly tolled away, above a sleeping con- 
tinent's once peacefully holy and regally 
beautiful, but now coarsely deformed, 
disfigured, and degraded, face. And we 
have paused here so long, kind reader, be- 
cause we have thought, and have spoken, 
of journeys, and of strength for the trav- 
eler's way; and we know that the nations 



Evening 61 

have fallen, because, in their path through 
the ages, they have not taken their food; 
because they knew not their Guide and 
Consoler, because they have forgotten 
,Him, who alone could have sustained 
them in life's ever perilous way. They 
are dead, because they have sought to 
live without the Viaticum of Life. They 
are commonplace, because, in its ab- 
sence, all their heavenly inspiration 
is gone. And their celestial Viaticum 
has not come to their aid, because it has 
been so coldly rejected and with full 
knowledge refused. Sadness, almost 
without hope, seizes upon our souls; but 
the nations, as ever, do but sit down to 
eat and to drink, and rise up, as of old, 
only to play. 1 

i Exod. xxxii. 6. 



VII. A MIDNIGHT JOURNEY 



e Et lucerna ejus est Agnus/ 



But we can rest no longer here. We 
must set forth at last, on our long, un- 
guided journey, though now it is darkest 
night. We must leave the fated city, and 
seek the not less deeply desolate town; 
fortunate, indeed, if we shall not wander 
far from our way, nor fall a prey to the 
lurking foes of these almost mediseval 
pathways. For we must not forget that 
we have gone back to the olden years; to 

i "And the Lamb is the lamp thereof." — Apoc. xxi. 23. 



A Midnight Journey 63 

a time when, if the kindly-hearted were 
kindly-hearted, indeed ; the evil-minded 
were consistent, too ; and showed but little 
mercy to the lonely wayfarer whom 
chance or design betrayed to their lurk- 
ing power. And even if, appalled by the 
night's now impenetrable gloom, and by 
the heavily silent darkness, which as yet 
yields not the slightest sound of the river's 
winding course, we feel that our hearts 
are sinking, and remember that we have 
traveled far to-day, — still, we must ad- 
vance. We could not recoil, even though 
certain that dark perils awaited us; for 
the scene of our hope must be no longer 
deferred, and deep sacrifice is ever the 
price of high heavenly favors. Nor 
should we inconsiderately despond too 
completely as yet, since it may even be 
that our path will be incomparably more 
holy and more beautiful now, in the deep, 
silent hours that throne the mountain's 
midnight. Those gentle feet have gone 
before. Surely, we can follow. 



64 A Midnight Journey 

In very truth, we have no need to fear. 
We are to have mystic aid to-night. Our 
task is not of earthly interest or ostenta- 
tion. We seek the knowledge of a holy 
life and of the deep Viaticum that can 
make it so. Our only wish and our only 
hope is to see God's fairest work with 
man, to mark His love in a chosen soul, to 
trace the footsteps of one whom Mary 
has loved with a very special love. 
Surely, we may hope that our reverent 
tread amidst scenes so holy will not be al- 
together devoid of divine protection. 
Our minds shall pierce night's deepest 
folds, and force them to yield us a most 
precious secret, guard it as they may. 
Our very pathway, too, it even seems, is 
to be rendered sure and certain; for we 
notice that here, just as we leave the an- 
cient city's gate, God's work already 
seems to have begun. We seem to see 
faint traces of the very footsteps we have 
come to seek. We all have read of an 
ardent saint, the wealth of whose charity 



A Midnight Journey 65 

caused even the frozen ground he trod to 
glow; and we all know that the gentle 
mystic of Avellino illumined even the 
densest darkness of night by his sacred 
presence. We remember, too, that the 
rays of heaven full often flashed bright 
from the face of our own fair saint; and 
to-night he seems to have left faint gleams 
of silvery radiance wherever his saintly 
feet have fallen. We think of the mys- 
terious words of the Lord in the Gospel, 1 
in which nature and grace seem reversed, 
and the bright body becomes the guide 
and the light of the soul. It may be that 
we are dreaming, or that sense, over- 
wrought, is deceived; but still, God's arm 
is never weakened, and it may also be that 
heaven is helping our love. For us, each 
trace surely seems to lie on the darkened 
road; they lead where we would go, and 
already they tell us much of him who left 
them there. 

They are those of a youth, and of feet 

i Luke xi. 36. 



66 A Midnight Journey 

that were all unprotected; for, though 
cruelly roughened by travel, they are 
slender and hesitating — perhaps he 
feared, as we were fearing, since he set 
out only a few hours before; and he, like 
ourselves, was turned to the Danube's 
waters — and their partially irregular out- 
lines tell of many a weary league's pa- 
tient, persevering endeavor. Yet they 
but lightly touched the cold, irresponsive 
ground; for an indefinable trace of gen- 
tility marks them more surely than aught 
else that we note; and we hasten more 
eagerly forward, feeling, in a vague, un- 
reasoning manner, that thus we soon shall 
find a graceful, princely youth ; one whom 
we shall greatly love, and who will love us, 
with a gentle, shrinking respect and affec- 
tion. 

And at length, on, on, into the night we 
are going; sometimes by the lowly peas- 
ant's cottage, with only the prowling 
watch-dog's surly, inquiring growl to 
greet us; sometimes through long arch- 



A Midnight Journey 67 

ways of dimly outlined trees, like the shad- 
owy midnight nave of some great Gothic 
cathedral from which choristers and 
adorers alike were gone ; a lone star gleam- 
ing above, at times, as the only reminder 
of the altar's myriad lights, and only the 
new-found murmur of the unseen brook, 
to replace the mighty organ's triumph- 
antly swelling tones. For leagues and 
leagues, we thus but sink more deeply and 
still more deep into the night's mysterious 
gloom; the fitful rustle of the sleeping 
trees only seeming to increase the weird 
loneliness of the solitary night-bird's 
piercing cry. Yet still the wondrous, al- 
most bright, footsteps seem to lead us un- 
doubtingly on; until we begin to question 
whether, indeed, we are not rather follow- 
ing some forgetful angel's brief earthly 
pathway, and to fear that its mistaken 
footsteps must soon cease, as it takes its 
more natural pathway to its heavenly 
home; leaving us with only a sadly ac- 
cented and emphasized sense of our own 



68 A Midnight Journey 

utter insignificance and weakness. We 
feel at last that perhaps we shall never be 
really rewarded by being permitted to see 
the bright, unearthly being who thus went 
forth into the night, and seems forever to 
allure, and yet forever to elude us. Still, 
even in the growing apprehension that all 
this may prove most sadly true, not all our 
thoughts are those of despair; for our 
minds, even more than our bodies, have 
also traveled far, very far, to-night, in 
the midst of these darkened mountain 
scenes; far, far beyond the littleness of 
earth's even secular turmoils ; far, far be- 
yond man's daily sin; and our souls have 
thus learned highest truths from heaven, 
here, in this silent, voiceless sanctuary of 
earth's deepest and holiest night. 



VIII. IN THE DARKNESS 



"Quis est iste qui venit de 
Edom, tinctis vestibus de 
BosraV x 



But these partially sad forebodings at 
length give place to a brighter hope, and 
it seems that we shall ere long be blessed 
with what we have come to regard as a 
heavenly vision ; for the mystic foot-prints 
gleam clearer and brighter now, and it 
would even seem that they received their 
gentle imprint only a few moments ago. 

i"Who is this that cometh from Edom, with dyed 
garments from Bosra?" — Is. lxiii. 1. 

69 



70 In the Darkness 

They lead up the hill, then aside from the 
path; and our hearts throb deeply as we 
seem to be so very near their maker. Yet, 
— alas for all earthly hope! — we lose his 
loved presence again, almost in despair, 
within the first fringes of a silent, gloomy 
wood, whose dark and heavy mold was 
much more kind to him than to us; since 
it sank soft beneath his weary and 
wounded feet, but refused to hold their 
impress for our gaze. The city's storied 
towers are far away. The Danube town 
must be more distant still, since we cannot 
hear as yet the heavy roll of the river's now 
insistent waters. Evidently, our pilgrim 
has turned aside ; and we know not whither 
he has bent his own disappointed foot- 
steps. With a feeling of irreparable loss, 
we return to the last faint prints on the 
sterner road; and as we veil our anxious 
eyes, even in the midnight's hopeless 
gloom, and test the yielding mold again, 
something more than the dews of the 
night moistens our cold and quivering 



In the Darkness 71 

cheeks. We feel, with most remorseful 
sorrow, that we tarried, indeed, too long 
near the city ; and that we have lost much, 
very much, to-night. 

Cruelly saddened in heart by our fruit- 
less search, we enter once more within the 
hushed and silent wood; and slowly try, 
yet all in vain, to disclose at least some 
guiding trace of disturbance, in its dark- 
ened and intricate windings ; when, all at 
once, at the edge of an opening which we 
seem to have entered amongst the trees, 
every movement is instantly arrested, by 
what seems a gentle sigh. We listen 
breathlessly for a moment, and every 
doubt is dispelled. A light, rhythmic 
breathing tells us that we have found the 
object of our search. Transfixed we 
stand, while the soft cadence of a gently 
undulating breast blends with the scarce 
moving midnight breeze. The moment 
seems too blest for earth, as we think of 
what lies resting under the shadows there. 
His breathing is so light that we dare not 



72 In the Darkness 

move, through fear of marring his so 
sorely needed repose. We feel that this 
must be our youthful saint, and the mind 
involuntarily flashes back to far Vienna, 
and along our own lonely path in his foot- 
steps ; while tears flow all unbidden, as we 
think of what this wearied slumber 
means. We mark each lightly murmured 
breathing, and instinctively turn our gaze 
to the darkened heavens for a reason they 
seem at first to refuse of the sorrow for- 
gotten for a moment here. Yet, "All that 
will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer 
persecution," * we remember; and we 
know that the slender, exhausted frame 
that is lying there in the silent night is but 
another proof of the lamentably humiliat- 
ing truth announced in these inspired 
words. We rapidly retrace the gentle 
sleeper's saddening story, and seek in vain 
a cause that might palliate, in some degree, 
the persistent cruelty that has urged him 
through all his weary way, and that has 

12 Tim. iii. 12. 



In the Darkness 73 

stretched him here, a victim of innocent 
suffering, to-night. We think of all the 
toils and perils that lie suspended in this 
midnight rest, and of the human harshness 
that has been their unrelenting cause; 
and yet, not all their cause; for we feel 
the very presence of that strangely tender 
love divine which has had its own deep 
part in prostrating this frail and delicate 
form here, in the lonely darkness, upon 
the chill mountain-side ; and something of 
a heavenly ecstasy of humblest submission 
to divine decrees and of fondest admira- 
tion and affection for the present gentle 
victim of purest returning love, takes un- 
resisted possession of our own deeply awed 
yet enraptured souls. We think of that 
wondrous web of continuous suffering 
into which God ever weaves all the golden 
glory destined for His favored saints ; and 
all our own toil seems as nothing, in this 
inspired moment, in which the very 
heavens seem to have descended upon 
earth, at the suffering side of one whose 



74 In the Darkness 

only desire is to do his Heavenly Father's 
will. 

Yet, even higher happinesses are now to 
become our own; for it would seem that 
the infinite treasures of divine grace and 
beauty from which we have already been 
so highly favored to-night, admit of no 
limit or pause. While still entranced in 
the first raptures of being so near to this 
glorious saint, another and higher trans- 
port steals over our delighted surprise, as 
those soft, unconscious breathings take 
fairest form, in words of sweetest piety, 
and fondly escape from the lonely sleep- 
er's sacred lips. Holy names, names of 
heaven, of Jesus and of Mary, are gently 
murmured in the still night air; for the 
impetuous love of that glorious heart but 
ill can brook dull sleep's repressive bonds, 
and instinctively forces even each deeply 
wearied sense to formulate its high de- 
mands. Some delicate phrase of most 
ardent love abruptly broken by another 
more beautiful still, seems to be the ami- 



In the Darkness 75 

able, and only remaining, token of weary 
nature's partial, protesting reign. We 
can only stand, bowed in deepest venera- 
tion, while these beauteous sacred accents 
follow one upon another in the stillness of 
the night. In eager thought, we follow 
them to the heaven whence they came ; and 
we strive to picture, in some weak, im- 
perfect way, their deep effect upon the 
mighty, loving heart of God, and within 
the tender, maternal breast of Mary; 
knowing well that we must fail, yet find- 
ing a flood of heavenly beauty in the loss of 
our fond attempt. We know, at least, that 
heaven itself bends lower at each inflamed 
appeal ; that Mary forms new thoughts of 
love each time he breathes her name ; and 
that, each moment, brighter glories gleam 
within the depths of that pure soul. We 
even seem to have entered at last within 
at least the first sacred courts of a saint's 
high communion with God; and we know 
not how long we have felt its ineffable 
charm; yet we rise, as in pain, from our 



76 In the Darkness 

wearied and trembling knees, upon which 
we had all unconsciously fallen ; as though 
we had heard some such words as those of 
the Lord to Moses, "The place whereon 
thou standest is holy ground." 1 

lExod. iii. 5. 



IX. A LIGHT FROM HEAVEN 



"Quis est iste 

formosusV * 



But higher and higher still, mounts the 
tide of heavenly goodness; for not even 
yet is God's kindness exhausted, nor yet 
His omnipotent power restrained. We 
are but trying to frame some proper re- 
turn for His kind condescension in grant- 
ing such favors as these; when He, from 
His infinite treasures, brings others even 
to us. For now, a strange new radiance 
comes to illumine these moments already 

i"Who is , . . this beautiful one?" — Is, lxiii. 1. 

77 



78 A Light From Heaven 

entrancingly blest ; as if even heaven itself 
had been feeling that its own exalted, su- 
pernal beauty, so deeply mirrored here, 
should be more fully known. Involun- 
tarily turning to the source of the softly 
stealing silvery light, we see that the 
clouds are rolling far, to break upon some 
distant mountain's lonely crest, while the 
pure moon begins to flood down to earth 
the full calm wealth of her cold white heav- 
enly beauty — so like to that of the stain- 
less soul which it seeks to reveal — and, 
overjoyed, we turn again to the sleeping 
form, and all our fondest hopes are fully 
blessed. 

For there, on the breast of a rugged 
knoll, where the trees had deployed their 
serried ranks for a time, as if to yield him 
an unbroken view of his own beloved 
heaven, his head resting at the foot of a 
rude cross evidently formed from withered 
branches by his own childish hands, lies 
Stanislaus, the beauteous object of our 
long-yearning love, the hope of our mystic 



A Light From Heaven 79 

journey, the reason for our silent mid- 
night search, the eager pilgrim sinking at 
last, and reluctantly yielding to his 
wearied limbs a few of the deeper hours 
of the dangerous night. How fully he 
verifies all our vague, yet exalted, antici- 
pations; anticipations now seem to have 
been most wondrously and most accu- 
rately true. For he is, indeed, a beautiful 
and a gentle youth. High intelligence is 
unmistakably stamped upon his lofty 
brow, and heaven's own purity follows 
and sanctifies every line of his graceful 
countenance. He seems so beauteous, so 
gentle, so refined! And oh! so young, to 
be here alone, and to be so sorely tried! 
Scarce seventeen, and with a mold of 
form which denies every thought of even 
early manhood, he seems far too youthful 
and too good thus to lie, an outcast in a 
world he has never wronged. His marble 
brow, outrivaling all the silver splendors 
of the night, is gemmed, as it lies all un- 
protected, with the same soft pearls that 



80 A Light From Heaven 

lie distilled upon the delicate petals of the 
wild rose that droops above his weary 
head; and the wandering mountain 
breezes caress the long dark locks, spared 
only by the precipitancy of his flight, 
which tell of high patrician origin, and do 
so much to pardon the swelling pride of a 
stern warrior father's heart and his stormy 
grief at the thought of losing so glorious 
a son. Ere long, those childish tresses, 
too, will have been sundered and cast 
aside, as belonging too fully to the world 
from which he fled; and as forming the 
only remaining sign of the noble lineage 
which that same vain world would so 
highly prize. For his garb is passing 
poor, and its texture light, indeed ; though 
even the summer night is cold, in these 
open upper lands ; and the leaves on which 
he lies are dank and chill. Yet, so fair 
and delicate the form, that even this 
mendicant raiment cannot veil the un- 
doubted nobility of its owner, by whom it 



A Light From Heaven 81 

is unavoidably borne with all a prince's 
grace. 

And the poor, slight feet are bare ; those 
gentle feet, that still have led us on so 
swiftly and so far! They seem like mar- 
ble, beneath the moon, save where strange 
crimson stains startle our tearful gaze. 
Toil and hardship through hundreds of 
miles of weary road and rugged pass have 
robbed them, in some degree, of their na- 
tive gracefulness and beauty. They lie 
disfigured in places, and the bright blood 
gleams here and there, like lost and 
broken rubies, from their only covering, 
the fortunate dust of his sanctified path- 
ways. As we tenderly gaze upon them, 
we remember the almost panting words of 
Isaias, which here find a touching and 
really literal application, "How beautiful 
upon the mountains are the feet of him 
that bringeth good tidings, and that 
preacheth peace!" * for these poor mem- 

i Is. lii. 7. 



82 A Light From Heaven 

bers lie, indeed, upon the mountain, and no 
one has ever preached peace more elo- 
quently than that gentle, almost inani- 
mate, form. We remember, and almost 
add with David, "We will adore in the 
place where his feet stood"; 1 for we know 
that heaven guides and guards their every 
movement. Slight marvel, if their deli- 
cate molding has not answered all the 
stern demands of the long, cruel way ; for 
they are slender, indeed; and they have 
pressed many a rude pathway, even from 
far Vienna. They have fled from a 
brother's cruelty and from a father's 
wrath, and they still are seeking the ful- 
filment of a high command imposed by 
heaven. They were fair and faultless 
once, but that was far away, in the still 
earlier youth of his own far distant, and 
forever relinquished, castle home. A 
cruel world has marred their gentle 
beauty, and they, like our own poor weak- 
ness, shall gleam faultless again only in 

i Ps. cxxxi. 7. 



A Light From Heaven 83 

heaven. We once again remember those 
strangely beautiful stories that, as we 
walked along, and asked an occasional 
passer-by, the country-folk had told us of 
a youthful prince who seemingly wished 
to forget his proud earthly lineage; and 
who, fleeing from some far-off city hun- 
dreds of miles away, had been seen at 
times moving swiftly, yet silently, along 
the more secret pathways when he could, 
and on the broad highways, only when he 
must; and who, they thought, could not 
now be far distant from the ancient city 
we had left. The fairest visions rise be- 
fore us now of this gentle youth passing, 
as the angel of the Incarnation might have 
done, so swiftly, yet so still, on his eager 
way ; and we feel that this gently slumber- 
ing youth is no other than the princely 
fugitive of the peasant's tale, that his is 
the form before us. 

Reverently, yet irresistibly, we draw 
nearer; as, ever and anon, an angelic 
smile softly steals across those placid 



84 A Light From Heaven 

features, and some gentlest word of habit- 
ual, unconscious piety still escapes from 
his delicate lips. Pressed closely to his 
heart, he is holding something, which thus 
remains unknown, until one of slumber's 
listless movements reveals, for a moment, 
in the pure light of the moon, a beautiful 
image of Mary; but only to return it at 
once, and with equal unconsciousness, to 
its endeared accustomed place. We in- 
stantly recall the fact that one of his most 
frequently murmured names was that of 
the great Queen of Heaven, and thus one 
of his deepest loves and one of his fond- 
est secrets is all our own; and we know 
that we now possess the full reason and 
cause of his wondrously angelic purity of 
manner and of mien. That beloved 
image, moreover, as it lies closely pressed 
to the lonely sleeper's heart, renders cer- 
tain our own long cherished hope, by 
showing that we thus have found the 
princely form and the stainless soul of 
the angelic Stanislaus Kostka; while all 



A Light From Heaven 85 

the doubts and all the fatigues of our own 
strange journey are forgotten, and only 
its charms remain; as, in a maze of ex- 
ultant admiration and affection, we seem 
to wreathe him fondly round with all the 
beauty and the majesty of the rippling 
waters and the frowning hills. 



X. THE PILGRIM'S COUCH 



"Vestitus erat veste as- 
persa sanguine. 93 i 



This is he, the sweetness of whose 
memory has filled the centuries through 
which we have seemed to pass to-night. 
His the thought that has been our in- 
spiration. It is for him that we have 
come, and for whom other minds, in other 
centuries, will repeat the ghostly pilgrim- 
age that we have just made with so much 
of eagerness and holy expectation; since 

i "He was clothed with a garment sprinkled with 
blood." — Apoc. xix. 13. 

86 



The Pilgrims Conch 87 

noblest moral beauty will ever hold com- 
pelling charms for each more thoughtful 
soul, and God has meant this glorious 
youth to live from age to age; to gleam, 
not only in the secret hearts of such as 
yearn to love as he has loved; but also in 
the whole vast world as well. 

But now his cruel wounds are taking 
on a strangely brighter tinge under the 
more loftily rising moon; and, "Why then 
is thy apparel red, and thy garments like 
those that tread in the wine-press?" 1 we 
cry, with Isaias, as we tearfully look 
upon that weary form and those feet in- 
carnadine; while, with an equal wealth 
of sacred significance and suggestiveness, 
comes the instant, unbidden answer, "I 
have trodden the wine-press alone, and of 
the nations there is not a man with me." 2 
For indeed, this gentle pilgrim, in his own 
beautiful measure, deserves these sacred 
words devoted by the Church to the bit- 

ils. lxiii. 2. 
2 Ibid., lxiii, 3. 



88 The Pilgrim's Couch 

ter passion of the Savior he so fondly 
loved and so faithfully imitated. He has, 
indeed, in his own sanctified person, trod- 
den sorrow's dark pathways alone. Ex- 
cepting the angels, he has passed through 
these hundreds and hundreds of miles, in 
solitary loneliness; and he is still alone, 
and still suffering, on these chill moun- 
tain heights. Verily, suffering was the 
refinement exemplified by the Master, 
and verily, sorrow indeed must be our 
own ; if even innocence like to this can thus 
be allowed by heaven to feel its most 
cruel pangs. Man has been merciless to 
this gentle youth without reserve. God 
has seemed to be harsh, but love was be- 
hind the veil; and the gentle eyes now 
closed in still slumber there have but 
gleamed with fonder returning love, even 
through the fast welling, uncontrollable 
tears of each repeated, divinely chastening 
blow. 

And such, dear reader, is the picture, 
lit by the midnight moon, that you have 



The Pilgrim's Couch 89 

been asked to contemplate. We have 
overtaken our weary pilgrim in one of 
the brief truces of his arduous way; and 
it may be well for us, also, to pause, like 
him, for a moment here, despite the im- 
petuous course of our eager pre-occupied 
thought; the more fully to ponder the 
deep lessons of life in this sacred place, 
at the side of a gentle, beauteous saint, in 
the wondrously glorious vision of this 
privileged night. Thus far, we have not, 
it is true, been allowed to witness his 
miraculous Holy Communions; but God 
may be kind, ere the journey is over; and 
may bless us, even in this. Yet, though 
deprived of all further concession, we 
could not but perfect this most beautiful 
scene; for we know that those lips have 
full often been touched by the hand of 
an angel, and by the angels' God. More 
than once, ere he left his sad home, and 
more than once on the perilous way, have 
the angels, and the Bread of the Angels, 
strengthened his faltering soul; and we 



90 The Pilgrim's Couch 

know that this heavenly food is the real 
and the only support of his marvelous 
life and power. Ah, yes! his every out- 
ward act is but the external expression 
of his gently beautiful soul; and could 
we but penetrate that now unconscious 
bosom, we should find that the thought 
of his Savior, and of his sacramental God, 
was its very being and life, the very 
light of the splendid, beauteous heaven 
already existing there. Nothing of this 
mere earth can enter where sanctity's 
perfect beauty resides; and each new act 
of this so sacred life is only another re- 
flection of God's own, all-perfect, inex- 
haustible loveliness mirrored within the 
purest and fairest of souls. It is true 
that our beauteous saint has thus far but 
touched the earth lightly; and some there 
may be who would wish to await the 
sterner proofs of sterner years; yet we 
shall find his heart's deep virtue most ex- 
quisite, even now; and we must remem- 
ber that his earthly impress shall never be 



The Pilgrim's Couch 91 

much deeper, and that even his present 
slight contact is soon to cease; since this 
glorious youth is far too gently fair to 
be much longer with us here, in this cold, 
unworthy world. He is now beyond his 
sixteenth year. He shall never close the 
eighteenth. God wants him at home in 
heaven. Mary is calling him to her 
side. The angels miss their kindred 
spirit, and eagerly await his return. He 
has lived a very long time, indeed, if we 
but number the sad beats of his exiled 
heart, or chronicle the incessant sighs of 
his heaven-yearning soul. And now, as 
never before, he himself is longing most 
ardently to go. He yearns for his 
Savior's and his Mother's side. Indeed, 
every act of his earthly life, from its very 
beginning, has looked steadily to its 
hastening close. This world, for him, 
has only meant the preparation for an- 
other; and should we go back to his life's 
early hours, and follow its brief but 
arduous course, we should find the ample 



92 The Pilgrims Couch 

reason for much that is lying here, as well 
as for his seraphic soul's now burning de- 
mand for eternal liberation. "Being 
made perfect in a short space, he fulfilled 
a long time" ; x and we can readily ap- 
preciate what we might call God's almost 
human motives outlined in the simple 
words, 'Tor his soul pleased God, there- 
fore He hastened to bring him out of the 
midst of iniquities." 2 It is true that his 
time has not yet come, but he feels its 
rapid approach; and for the trying inter- 
vening interval, he is waiting here, only as 
a page who still must obey his queen's be- 
hest, as a faithful child who hears a 
mother's call, as a loyal soldier who flinches 
not at his general's deep-testing command. 
Mary has told him he must enter the 
society named for her Son, and all these 
weary leagues do but form an unbroken 
chain of devoted acts, loyal to her will. 
The storied city he had sought could not 

iWis. iv. 13. 
2 Ibid., iv. 14. 



The Pilgrim's Couch 93 

fulfil his vow; for the saintly Canisius, 
whom God in His faultless providence 
had destined to meet the holy youth — 
only a saint can understand a saint — has 
gone to the river town, and thither this 
generous child is speeding; pausing here, 
only because the night is safer in the silent 
wood. Let him rest deep in the peace of 
his holy repose ; whilst we earnestly study, 
in this strange, supernatural scene, clothed 
round with all the calm majesty of in- 
tensest night, the deep lessons of which 
we all stand so much in need, but which 
so few are fitted to teach! 



XI. PEACE THROUGH 
SUFFERING 



"Non quomodo mundus 
dat, ego do vobis" x 



We know that he entered the active 
outer world all pure and bright, fully 
loving and trusting everybody, and think- 
ing that everybody would love and trust 
him; but we also know that his young 
and generous heart, though daily ad- 
vancing in each most noble charm, was 
soon chilled by universal harshness, and 
cruelty, and sin. Those gentle eyes now 

i "Not as the world giveth do I give." — John xiv. 27. 
94 



Peace Through Suffering 95 

closed in holy, child-like sleep have met 
no kind returning glance for many weary 
years. Those small, slight ears now 
softly lulled, not less by Mary's loving 
lips than by the whispering night-wind's 
murmur, have heard no earthly sound so 
sweet, since childhood's early hours; for 
bitterest blame and cold reproach have 
long been their only heritage. The sweet, 
sad pleadings of those now softly mur- 
muring lips have earned no other answer 
than coarsest imprecation. That gentle 
side, rising and falling so peacefully now, 
has full oft been spurned by a brother's 
cruel foot; and that cheek so white and 
wan has borne, like the Master's, the 
livid imprint of a ruthless, impious hand. 
Truly, he has trodden the wine-press 
alone, with none, save God or Mary, to 
console; for, excepting God and the 
angels, all these bitter sufferings have 
ever remained concealed and unknown, 
and without even a thought of complaint 
or redress, while this final escape from 



96 Peace Through Suffering 

these dark sorrows has only meant the in- 
fliction of others still more deep. These 
hundreds of miles of painful flight have 
formed his only relief; and they have but 
stretched him here, alone, on the chill 
mountain-side where he is lying cold and 
trembling now. Even here, grief has 
only been added unto grief; and his ever 
solicitous and thoughtful mind is suffer- 
ing much more than even his delicate, sen- 
sitive body; for his unselfish soul keenly 
pictures all that his loved ones are suffer- 
ing, and his heart bleeds deep for their 
sake, though he knows that they weep 
without prayer. He has left one home, 
but has not found another ; and he knows 
not how long God's design may refuse 
him where to lay his anxious head. He 
knows that he has suffered unjustly, yet 
he flees in terror from the insistent 
thought; and his greatest pang would be 
the slightest movement of resentment or 
revenge. His one constant yearning is 
to love and be loved, yet he can find no 



Peace Through Suffering 97 

earthly object on which justly to lavish 
the pure deep gold of his heart's ardent 
affection. And Jesus and Mary seem 
so far away! 

Yes, in his regard, as in that of every 
other, trial was the inexorable price of 
high Christian perfection; and it was in 
these bitter sorrows that his young heart 
and brave soul grew strong. The deepest 
of suffering has given to the sweet, soft 
piety of his earlier childhood a temper 
and a strength that now can be utterly 
inflexible and austere. He is still the very 
soul of all that is childishly and innocently 
guileless, of all that is kind and thought- 
ful; but he is also something more. The 
still white gleam that now leaps from the 
depths of his stainless soul is the flash of 
the sternest steel, not merely the soft, 
milk-white radiance of its first, yielding, 
snow-like beauty. It is not less fair, but 
it is more noble, than any less deeply 
tested piety could be. Unconsciously, our 
minds again revert to the Scripture, and 



98 Peace Through Suffering 

in our thought we seem to hear the angel 
speaking, as he says, "Because thou wast 
acceptable to God, it was necessary that 
temptation should prove thee." * And the 
test has indeed been deep, and has been full 
nobly borne. Its only effect has been, as 
heaven intended, to urge that generous 
soul to ever greater and greater sacrifice 
for God. This present midnight scene is 
only a moment's pause in a long series of 
acts reaching the highest ascetic heroism; 
for, as we all know, this noble soul is 
thus fleeing from a parent's love, from 
wealth and station and power, from all 
that this world holds dear; and is thus 
thrusting aside all the treasures of earth, 
only in order to follow its crucified God, 
only in order to give its all to Him who 
gave His all for us. And this total con- 
secration of years which for him are 
mature, is but the natural, and at the same 
time supernatural, culmination and crown 
of spotless early years ? of an intrepid, 

1 lob, xii, 13, 



Peace Through Suffering 99 

generous youth, of thoughtful, pious 
school-days, and of steadily faithful in- 
creasing years; of unalterable patience 
under the most galling forms of domestic 
tutelage, of constant, silent prayer, of 
love for the still and shadowy church and 
for the lonely Prisoner of the Tabernacle, 
of tenderest affection for Mary, and of a 
life wholly lived for God alone. 

Nor, though all the toils of that long 
and lonely pathway now rest on those 
weary limbs and feet, is his arduous task 
yet done. This is not the only wood that 
must shelter him ; for he has still far, very 
far, to go. His sacrifice is not yet com- 
plete. The victim of love divine is not yet 
wholly consumed by its ardors. Suffer- 
ing must still further test and refine the 
pure gold that is gleaming here. Not all 
these further trials, it is true, now stand 
out clear and well defined before his will- 
ing mind; yet he has a saint's deep pre- 
science, and he looks to the future for 
sorrow rather than for joy. 



100 Peace Through Suffering 

Yet, if this lofty life is to be fully 
known, it must be remembered that, not- 
withstanding all this certain and uncer- 
tain sorrow, he is at peace, he is supremely 
happy, with God's own exalted happiness. 
Earth knows no other more deeply blessed. 
He has always remembered that, "Whom 
the Lord loveth, he chastiseth," 1 as well 
as the Apocalyptic oracle, "Such as I 
love, I rebuke and chastise"; 2 and for 
him, these constant sufferings have only 
been so many undoubted pledges of that 
glorious love divine which could not but 
claim and secure the most generous, un- 
questioning ardors of his own returning af- 
fection. He has heard the beautiful, con- 
soling words, "My peace I give unto you," 
but he has also marked their significantly 
warning conclusion, "Xot as the world 
giveth, do I give." 3 He remembers, too, 
that even after the bright Resurrection, 
when Christ again said to the disciples, 

i Heb. xii. 6. 2 Apoc. iii. 19. 3 John xiv. 27. 



Peace Through Suffering 101 

"Peace be with you/' He also at once, as 
if showing the foundations of heaven's 
deep peace, showed them the wounds of 
His hands and His side. 1 Stanislaus 
knows that his Savior's peace was a peace 
borne through a life of sorrow to a death 
of shame ; and he knows that he is not bet- 
ter than his Master. He does not, there- 
fore, look for, nor desire, the only peace 
which this coarse world can give, the base, 
ignoble peace of carnal earthly ease. In- 
deed, he counts not, he scarcely feels, the 
passing trials of earth; for his heart is 
beating high in heaven, with his kindred 
angels and saints. His conversation is 
truly and constantly there, and his 
thoughts are so little of earth that even 
here below, his Guardian Angel often 
walks openly and visibly at his innocent 
side, speaking with him on terms of al- 
most equal intimacy; as if both were 
either of sanctified flesh and blood, or both 

ijohn xx. 20. 



102 Peace Through Suffering 

were already the bright inhabitants of 
heaven, in some strange manner strayed 
to our common earth. 

Calmly he sleepeth now, indeed ; yet not 
even in his slumber can his ardent soul 
forget all the beauty and the tenderness 
that fill his waking hours with the fondest 
love of God. Would his deep humility 
permit, he could truly say, in the words of 
the Canticle, "I sleep, and my heart 
watcheth." 1 His slumber is more like 
the soft closing of sense to earthly things, 
in order to gaze more fully and more un- 
interruptedly upon the very Beatific 
Vision Itself. We ourselves but just now 
have heard his many murmured protesta- 
tions of sweetest and purest affection. 
And still he breathes these words of love, 
as still he slumbers on, the beads he has 
so often told along the weary road still 
twined about his long, white fingers, with 
the crucifix fondly pressed to the palm. 
And still we gaze entranced, like the shep- 

lCan. v. 2. 



Peace Through Suffering 103 

herds beneath another midnight sky, so 
long ago, while still a deep, calm silence 
covers all, and the night is holding its 
middle course ; as when, too, at that same 
dread hour, O God! "Thy Almighty 
Word leapt down from heaven from Thy 
royal throne." * And still the cold, white 
moon wheels in distant curving beauty 
through the now widely star-gemmed 
heaven. And a low, unconscious moan is 
heard at the foot of the mountain cross ! 

i Wis. xviiL 15. 



XII. THE HOLOCAUST 



"Ibi offeres eum in holo- 
caustum super unum mon- 
tium, quern monstravero 
tibi." 1 



We have felt, and we have said, that 
these false lands were most foully and 
most deeply blighted, and in very truth 
they are; but in him who is lying here, 
they are also most deeply blessed ; for this 
white victim on the chill mountain-side, 
this spotless lamb on the earth's great 

i "There thou shalt offer him for an holocaust upon one 
of the mountains which I will shew thee." — Gen. xxii. 2. 

104 



The Holocaust 105 

altar to its God, this angelic soul in a 
frail earthly body, recalling the Divine 
concealed in mortal flesh, is an immaculate 
oblation in their behalf ; and God, mayhap, 
some day will honor the stainless expia- 
tion. Nothing more beautiful ever rested 
on Europe's guilty bosom. This holy 
child is lying, a heavenly holocaust, in the 
granite arms of the mighty Alps, as if to 
appease the just wrath of high heaven 
against the deeply stained hearts that 
pulse so heedlessly below ; and there must 
be some response, in time or in eternity, 
to his deep soul's earth-wide longings for 
righteousness and truth. Hearts such as 
his never palpitate wholly in vain, though 
the record full often is kept only in an- 
other world. The sight of suffering 
youthful beauty at Rome so long ago led, 
in God's ever gracefully moving prov- 
idence, to the first light of the Gospel in 
Britain; perhaps the same suffering 
beauty here to-night may lead, under the 
same omnipotent guidance, to the im- 



106 The Holocaust 

measurably more difficult task of its full 
restoration to lands in which it has once 
been loved and lost. For the weary form 
that has fallen here is one of the fairest 
that God has ever molded. It is that 
of one who is now, and has ever been, the 
favored child of Mary, Heaven's Queen. 
That mind now soothed in soft suspension 
there, is the habitual home of the highest 
and holiest thought; and that heart still 
throbbing heavily from its toil is the per- 
petual source of the purest and most 
lofty desire. It is stern, indeed, with 
high resolve ; and yet is melting with every 
most sweet and gentle tenderness. That 
hand which now so reverently holds 
Mary's beloved image to his heart, has 
held to that same pure bosom — yes, even 
here on earth — Mary's own divine, celes- 
tial Son; under the winning guise, so 
fitting for him, of a beauteous infant child ; 
and has fondled him in all the tender ex- 
cesses of innocent, exuberant joy! Only 
in heaven, shall higher beauty greet our 



The Holocaust 107 

gaze than that upon which we are look- 
ing now, as it lies here all our own, in the 
soft moonlight of the sacred midnight's 
mountain scene! Yes, dear reader, this 
is gentle, beautiful, angelic, seraphic 
Stanislaus Kostka; another Isaac on the 
mountain-side, only there is no kindly 
father, to strike in mercy the swiftly 
liberating blow. Surely, God will hear his 
saintly prayer and accept his willing im- 
molation; and surely, indeed, our own 
long journey through the centuries, 
through strange lands, and through the 
whispering night, has not been too great 
a price to pay for such a high reward. 
But now, for a time, we must bid him a 
sad farewell ; for, though we shall see him 
again, since we still shall follow in his 
sacred footsteps, we must leave him here 
now all alone for a time, on the silent hill- 
side, in the cold white night with God ; for 
he will soon awake, and it were a most 
unpardonable intrusion, to share that 
heavenly soul's first greetings to its 



108 The Holocaust 

Maker. Even now, his still uncon- 
sciously murmured prayers are for God's 
blessings on the day; and his resolute 
heart may at any moment summon even 
those still deeply wearied members to in- 
stant and eager action. Our privilege has 
already been very great. We must not 
profane deep mysteries too holy for our 
gaze. 



XIII. THE AWAKENING 



"Adjuro vos . . . per 
capreas cervosque campo- 
rum, ne suscitetis, neque 
evigilare faciatis dilec- 
tarn/' 1 



Yet, were we still to stand beside him 
here, near, but all unseen, we should be- 
hold an awakening fair, indeed, and holy. 
As the first pale light of common day be- 
gan to outline and illustrate his splendid 
beauty, we should see the large eyes un- 

i"I adjure you ... by the roes and the harts of 
the field that you make not the beloved to awake." — 
Can. ii. 7. 

109 



110 The Awakening 

close, and a charming child-like wonder 
fill their lucid depths. For he is very, 
very young; and yet he is far, very far, 
from home. It was only the other day 
that his heart-broken mother gave him the 
tearful blessing that marked his first real 
entrance into the outer world ; and now the 
tall trees swaying gently high above his 
head against the lofty, purpling sky make 
him think that he must still be dreaming; 
and he looks inquiringly around, until, in a 
moment, a sweetly amused smile marks 
his awakening sense of still half -uncon- 
scious deception. But then, in an in- 
stant, the whole sad truth flashes full 
upon him, and an utter desolation over- 
shadows his innocent, ingenuous face. 
With a swift flash of pain, his mind has 
leapt to his own far distant Poland, from 
which he feels that he must have walked 
so very, very far away. In a dull con- 
fusion of varying grief and sadness, he 
thinks of that saintly mother's fondest 
love; of her willing, yet oh! so anxious 



The Awakening 111 

sacrifice; of a father's violent, unreason- 
ing affection; of a brother, heartless in a 
cruelty continued even through the course 
of this very flight ; of unseen tears, of un- 
heard supplications, of spurned and re- 
jected entreaties. His last memory of 
natural ties is that of brutal neglect and 
ill-treatment. Heavy tears course down 
his blanched and wearied cheek, and his 
fair brow droops again in utter discour- 
agement upon his despairingly out- 
stretched arm. Yet nature's unguarded 
and turbulent reign can be but brief, in- 
deed, and unconscious in that pure 
though prematurely suffering soul. A 
wandering sunbeam has touched the 
delicate rose petals above him, and it 
glistens and plays in the sparkling dew 
they bear. Instantly, the thought of the 
God of Beauty floods his troubled soul 
with sweetest peace, and strange ecstatic 
splendors seem to flash all about him. 
For, despite our own resolve, we have 
most imprudently tarried too long. Lost 



112 The Awakening 

in the lovely vision, we forgot all other 
things beside ; and have thus unconsciously 
remained, and have unwillingly invaded 
the consecrated sanctuary of his rap- 
turous morning prayer. It were impos- 
sible, now, to retire, without subjecting 
him whom we so wish to respect, to the 
most abashed and painful distress and 
confusion. We can only bow low in 
deepest and most reverent silence, and 
join our own weak prayers to his. 
He quickly lifts his weary frame, and 
kneels to offer the first homage of his 
heart to God. That lovely countenance 
is all transfigured now. A radiance from 
on high invests its every gentle feature, 
and folds him round with heaven's own 
celestial beauty, until the mountain fast- 
ness gleams as bright as brightest day. 
He signs himself with the saving cross, 
and this single reminder of his Savior's 
love is sufficient to suffuse his entire being 
with the deepest returning tenderness and 
affection. From his beautiful eyes, raised 



The Awakening 113 

fondly to heaven, tears again flow fast; 
but now from higher, purer fountains; 
nor feels he longer any need to check 
their warmly rapid coursing. Motionless 
we see him thus, absorbed in rapt con- 
templation of some invisible beauty, and 
speaking the voiceless language of another 
world ; while we feel that we ourselves are 
forming part of scenes too holy for com- 
mon men, but doubtless clear and plain, 
with heaven's own light, to glorious souls 
like his. But still we are very, very 
happy ; for we can love, at least, what we 
cannot fully understand ; and again, in the 
celestial beauty of the scene, we have for- 
gotten all. For aught we know, a thou- 
sand years may have passed away for us, 
not less than for the amiable song-charmed 
monk of old, who far outlived his time, 
and returned, to find a stranger in his 
cell, and his own very name forgotten ; all 
through his following, for a few brief mo- 
ments, as he thought, the enchanting notes 
of a softly warbling little bird; and now, 



114 The Awakening 

we, like him. find a truer, deeper mean- 
ing in the Psalmist's inspired assertion 
that, with God, a thousand years are as 
a day that is past; x as also in the words of 
Saint Peter that, with Him, one day is 
as a thousand years, and a thousand years 
as one dav. 2 Even for us. our instant de- 
light seems to have destroyed all sense of 
time; and we know now that one thought 
of that glorious soul contains more of life 
than a thousand years of sin. With 
Ecclesiasticus, we feel that ' ; as a pebble 
of the sand, so are a few years compared 
to eternity"; 3 for time is thus seen to be 
an utterly useless and extraneous factor in 
scenes so holy as these. And he is pray- 
ing while we think. 

But suddenly, and with a swiftly crim- 
soning flush, as though conscious of some 
deep guilt, we see this rapt seraph start 
from his knees. He has doubtless 
thought of a duty which seems, perhaps, 
too long neglected, through this sweet 

i Ps. lxxxix. 4. - 2 Pet. ill. ?. 3 Eeclus. xviii. 8. 



The Awakening 115 

communion with his God. He remembers 
that his task is not yet done, that he must 
hasten to the silent monastery of the 
farther town; since it is there alone that 
he now may hope to fulfil his beloved 
Mother's command, by entering the So- 
ciety of Jesus. While, therefore, the 
first long pencils of the morning light are 
still struggling vainly downward, to 
touch the gloomy mountain peaks, he 
anxiously scans the unwilling horizon at 
the point where the distant goal of his 
lengthened journey disappeared the night 
before. The wide fields and sloping hill- 
sides sparkling faintly white from the 
night's long coolness at once recalled to 
him that heavenly manna of the long ago, 
which, as the Scripture says, as "a dew 
lay round about the camp"; 1 and which 
the Holy Writer further describes, by 
saying that "when it had covered the face 
of the earth, it appeared in the wilderness 
small, and as it were beaten with a pestle, 

i Exod. xvi. 13. 



116 The Awakening 

like unto the hoar-frost on the ground." 
Nothing of all this so sacredly suggestive 
beauty was lost upon the deeply observant 
eyes of Stanislaus, whose few earthward 
glances saw something of God in what- 
ever they touched; and which now, in an 
instant ecstasy of love and affection, be- 
held mirrored here both the mighty In- 
carnation and its sweet perpetuation in 
the true and Heavenly Manna of the 
New and Eternal Dispensation. His 
own fond studies of the sacred page had 
told him that, in the gentle though won- 
drous Incarnation, "He shall come down 
like rain upon the fleece; and as showers 
falling gently upon the earth"; * and now 
in this graceful reminder of the small 
flakes of the manna, "beaten, as it were, 
with a pestle," he saw, beneath sacra- 
mental veils, the humility and meekness 
of his Savior, beaten, indeed, and with 
cruel scourges, at the pillar; and cold and 
pure, with mortification and sinlessness, 

IPs. lxxi, 6. 



The Awakening 117 

like the seeming frost which here lay so 
cold and white on the ground; yet "hav- 
ing in it," as none knew better than 
Stanislaus, "all that is delicious, and the 
sweetness of every taste." * After some 
further enraptured moments of still un- 
conscious delay, in the silent contempla- 
tion of the beautifully suggestive scene 
that thus stretched so wide before him, and 
in untold longings that he might partake 
to-day of all that lay so tenderly pre- 
figured and signified here, he turned aside, 
with brow still radiant from his prayer, 
and, scarce pausing to bathe back his 
dark locks at a mountain rill that leapt 
near by from rock to rock, he kissed once 
more the humble cross his own frail hands 
had fashioned; and left it there, on the 
mountain, like the sign where the 
patriarch, too, had gazed from the cold 
night earth to the bright heaven of his 
God. 2 Then, emerging from the wood, 
his hands raised suppliantly for a moment 

i Wis. xvi. 21, 22. 2 Gen. xxviii. 18. 



118 The Awakening 

towards the distant pathway which his 
eager heart and glance have already 
swiftly spanned, he sets forth, with 
rapid step, upon what he fondly hopes will 
prove to be a last brief link in the long 
journey leading to the haven of his hope. 
And his fervent prayer was, indeed, to 
be granted ; but in God's own still testing 
way; for its final realization was still to 
be, in a partial sense, deferred. He was 
to rest for a time — but only for a time — 
as the virtually, though not fully, ac- 
cepted associate of those to whose com- 
plete companionship he so ardently as- 
pired; and his worldly vesture, all so 
simple as it was, was not as yet to be 
exchanged for the beloved garb of the 
cloister. His lofty gifts from Heaven 
demanded yet other trials and sufferings. 
Another city and another saint were re- 
served, in God's omnipotent design, to be 
the scene and the instrument of his com- 
plete and final entrance to the earthly par- 
adise of his expectant love. Rome, the 



The Awakening 119 

Mystic City of God, the earthly home of 
the Holy Ghost ; Rome, other hundreds of 
miles away, hundreds of miles still to be 
trodden by those same slender and bleed- 
ing feet, ere they rest at last in their long 
repose, was to have the high honor of vest- 
ing this angel for heaven in the conse- 
crated robes of deepest religion on earth, 
and of forming his last foot-stool and 
pause on the way to his heavenly home. 



XIV. THE MORNING PATH- 
WAY 



"Quoniam angelis suis 
mandavit de te" x 



But we must not unduly anticipate. 
We must return to love's eager fugitive in 
the present part of his toil, and must fol- 
low, with him, as he gains the dim road- 
way; where, scarce seeming to touch the 
dark ground, he speeds rapidly onward 
to the wide stretching plain. For we have 
wished to think mostly of Stanislaus under 
the guise of a traveler, sustained by a 

i "For he hath given his angels charge over thee." — 
Ps. xc. 11. 

120 



The Morning Pathway 121 

heavenly food; and if we dwelt long on 
his beauteous rest, it was only to study 
those depths of his soul which tell of his 
nourishment's heavenly source. And now, 
to his gladdening gaze, the river's blue wa- 
ters begin to appear in the quivering 
light; and the towers he seeks rise from 
the mists of the morn. God is so burn- 
ing with tenderest love for this innocent, 
generous child that every step of his path- 
way may lead to new marvels of divinest 
beauty and power. What we have al- 
ready been permitted to see, has, even at 
our immeasurable distance beneath him, 
most wondrously exalted our privileged 
souls; and we feel better fitted to follow 
his further communion with God. We 
know that already we have been most sig- 
nally favored. Perhaps even other bright 
beauties await ! 

But no ! They do not await ! They are 
instant and present! For who is that 
bright heavenly spirit who walks with 
Stanislaus now? Even we, with our rude 



122 The Morning Pathway 

earthly vision, can discern, in the still 
lingering shadows, some far-flashing 
beams of his glorious beauty! How 
gently he smiles, and with what delicate 
care he unerringly guides in each more in- 
tricate part of the dubious way! Ah! 
God never deserts the trust of His little 
ones. Those who really hope fully and 
trustingly in Him shall never be con- 
founded. We remember the legend of 
this saint's visible guardian; and we see 
that through his deep love of God, and 
God's love of him, this delicate youth, who 
formerly knew only the way to the church 
and the school, has traveled, secure with 
this heavenly guide, through the world's 
most darksome mountains and vales, in the 
midst of strange scenes and of stranger 
men, for hundreds and hundreds of miles ; 
and yet bears no mark of his premature 
toil, save his poor wounded feet and his 
thin, blanched cheek ; which again, in their 
turn, only tell, as before, of God's fondly 
chastening, yet unmistakable, love. His 



The Morning Pathway 123 

angel guide has been with him always; 
often visibly, as now; and doubtless at 
times with myriads of brightest heavenly 
comrades. We follow both, feeling in 
some slight measure like themselves ; since 
we hasten on, with fatigue forgotten in 
heavenly delight. 

And even when the advancing day has 
robbed, as it were, God's enviously loving 
providence — which, in this poor world, 
gives only those slender glimpses of 
heaven which meagerly supply our abso- 
lute need, and are indispensably neces- 
sary for us, if we are not to faint by the 
lonely, discouraging way— of its last fond 
justification for the visible presence of the 
guardian prince from on high; and when, 
therefore, to our poor gaze, Stanislaus 
seems once more to be walking alone; it 
would still be impossible to picture a scene 
more engaging; and this, though we were 
to restrict ourselves wholly to its merely 
natural charm. At times, we are en- 
tranced to see the youthful — almost child- 



124 The Morning Pathway 

ish — wayfarer, by an unconscious, irre- 
sistible impulse, raise his seraphic eyes to 
heaven, and hasten on completely forget- 
ful of the early risen peasants, who look 
with unfeigned wonder upon this grace- 
ful apparition; this youth attired so hum- 
bly, yet with every mark of undoubted 
nobility and refinement resting on every 
feature and investing every act ; as he still 
hastens rapidly forward towards the wak- 
ing city they have left. Yet, later, he 
himself remembers that he is still on earth, 
and still observed; and a soft flush, in- 
comparably more delicate than even that 
of the morning's purpling beam, mantles 
his pure cheek, as he quickly bows his 
graceful head, and moves silently on in ut- 
most recollection; only to forget himself 
again, almost immediately, as some new 
excess of tenderest love floods his impet- 
uous soul, and causes him, in utter obliv- 
ion of all beside, to raise his bathed eyes 
again to its heavenly Author; and the 



The Morning Pathway 125 

passers-by again recover the unclouded 
vision of his seraphic beauty, as it flashes 
unrestrained from his glowing cheek and 
upturned eye ; until, still again, his droop- 
ing head and the renewed blushes of con- 
scious and holy confusion suffuse, and seek 
to conceal, but only succeed in enhancing, 
each radiantly beautiful charm. And 
thus the entrancing duel between love di- 
vine and saintly reserve was continued by 
placid lake and shady dell, with most vary- 
ing result, until the mount of his night's 
rest had been left far behind, and the coun- 
try-folk came and went in greater num- 
bers ; so that an oppressive sense of worldly 
turmoil and distraction caused the strange 
pilgrim to urge his already rapid foot- 
steps to even greater effort. And we, in 
our own splendid prerogative of spiritual 
observation, have had our part in this 
wondrous journey; a journey still on 
earth, as has been said; but one that has 
yet led swiftly away from all that earth 



126 The Morning Pathway 

holds dear; one that has already partaken 
much less of earth than of heaven, even 
though it still seems deprived of its proper, 
its heavenly, Viaticum. 



XV. VIATICUM VITAE 



"Si quis diligit me, . 
ad eum veniemus." 1 



But at length, near a wide-sweeping 
curve in the now flowery road, this eagerly 
accelerated pace of the youthful fugitive 
is suddenly and completely arrested. As 
the fleeing stag, faint with fatigue and 
thirst, after its long and desperate flight, 
when once it has fully eluded the cruelty 
of its relentless pursuers; though still in- 
stinctively speeding, in utmost fear, 

i "If any one love Me, . . . We will come to him." 
— John xiv. 23. 

127 



128 Viaticum Vitae 

through the forest's deepest glades, halts, 
foot in air, as the fountain's first ripples 
pulse upon its straining ear; then leaps, 
swift as the arrow that sought it, to their 
limpidly cooling source; so Stanislaus 
stood for an instant motionless in his rapid 
course ; then turned from the road, and en- 
tered a woodland pathway, with a step 
more light than even that of the forest's 
antlered monarch. For his ear, too, had 
caught its most welcome sound, the to him 
incomparably entrancing music of a softly 
pealing bell; and, guided by its tones, his 
ever vigilant eye had instantly marked the 
spires of a noble church amongst the 
gently waving tree-tops. Transports of 
joy thrill his heaving breast; for the last 
thought of the night, and the first prayer 
of the morning, had been for Holy Com- 
munion ; and now his burning wish can be 
fulfilled, he can receive his Savior. Al- 
ready he sees the Altar, the Sacrifice, the 
Sacrament of Love ! He knows that he is 
faint, that he is fast failing in the way, 



Viaticum Vitae 129 

that he cannot much longer endure the pri- 
vation of the only support that has enabled 
him to travel so far already, or that can 
sustain his further toil. He yearns for the 
Bread of Heaven, as for the traveler's 
only real hope; and he feels that now all 
his longings will be satisfied. With ec- 
stasy, too, he marks that he is still in time; 
since the people still come along the wind- 
ing paths that thread the scrupulous 
pastures, or follow the deeply bending 
trees that border the quiet town. He 
feels that the Holy Mass cannot yet be 
over, and that soon — so soon — he can re- 
ceive the Beloved of his bosom. And 
this fond hope of his burning heart is 
changed to seeming certainty, as he enters 
the sacred edifice, and sees that the altar 
is not yet in use. Sinking, his heart over- 
whelmed with its holy anticipations, into 
the soft shadow of a near-by pillar, he be- 
gins to prepare for the reception of his 
God, by begging pardon for his sins, — 
though what these could be, only a saint 



130 Viaticum Vitae 

could tell — and by still further inflaming, 
with repeated profession, his faith, his 
hope, and his love ; as well as by thanking, 
with the most melting of tenderness, his 
God and his Mother for this infinite favor 
so ineffably dear to his pure and holy 
heart. 

But oh! the continued fallacy of even 
holiest earthly hope! Tones fatally for- 
eign fall upon that ear but just now en- 
tranced by its most deeply coveted sounds. 
It is greeted with accents strange in every 
sense, and alien, because not couched in 
the beloved Latin of the ancient Church. 
A dread suspicion instantly overshadows 
his anxious soul, a suspicion which his 
quickly upturned glance as instantly 
changes into a certainty still more ap- 
palling. From the celestial ecstasies of a 
moment before, at the thought of the ac- 
tual presence of God, he sinks to the sud- 
den horror of kneeling in a house of 
heresy. He seeks, like Saint John, to 
flee; but the overwhelming anguish of his 



Viaticum Vitae 131 

blighted hope has left him too faint for 
the effort. The willing feet that have 
steadily borne him through so many 
weary leagues cannot now even reach 
the portals through which he passed so 
lightly but a moment ago; and, all un- 
able to control himself longer, his head 
sinks to his breast, and the floods of his 
grief pour forth uncontrolled from his 
utterly desolate soul. His frame, but just 
now so lightsome, and capable of any fa- 
tigue, droops heavily and helplessly 
against the stern marble column ; which is 
yet not more chill than his own icy heart. 
His second frightened glance had met the 
now faded and forgotten mural decora- 
tions which told him that God, indeed, 
had once dwelt here ; that this temple once 
had been, in truth, a most beautiful ark of 
the True and Eternal Covenant; but 
which also told him that it was one now 
desecrated and defiled by a cold, human, 
falsely substituted worship. He marks, 
with utter despair, all the chill, unbroken 



132 Viaticum Vitae 

barrenness of nave and chancel; and 
trembles convulsively, in an almost mortal 
rigor, as he becomes fully conscious of the 
last, fatal proof, the utter absence of that 
blood-red lamp which would have told of 
a divine Heart still pulsing purple within 
the now desolate, dust-strewn tabernacle. 
He almost swoons away, nor looks any 
longer for the gleaming lights and fra- 
grant flowers which should have circled 
the repose of his Beloved. And soon, 
neither the bleak church nor his own gelid 
body were any longer present to him ; for 
all else was lost in the ever increasing bit- 
terness of the cruel thought that this same 
God, thus utterly exiled from the chosen 
abode of His love, must now also remain 
absent from the deeper and holier, though 
now even more lonely and desolate, taber- 
nacle of his own desponding soul. He 
tries, with all his power, to be resigned 
to heaven's will, and to bear, with com- 
plete submission, his own incomparable 
loss; but the struggle is intense, and 



Viaticum Vitae 133 

though he has at length become silent, and 
though his tear-stained face has sought 
the protecting seclusion of the column's 
deeper recesses; still, some of the more 
kindly of the peasants, moved by his evi- 
dent distress, are about to draw near, to 
ask the cause of this deep affliction, and to 
proffer aid; if, indeed, even gentlest aid 
can be of any use. 

But oh ! still higher and greater beauty ! 
O wondrous goodness of our God! This 
sorrow has proved to be like unto that 
other, greater agony of Gethsemani ; since 
it, too, is to have a chalice from on high, 
though not of earthly sorrow, but only of 
unalloyed celestial delight! The sinless 
anguish of that gentle soul has been too 
much even for heaven itself to bear. It 
has bent God's own omnipotence; and, 
through a splendid miracle of divinest love 
and compassion, the Eternal Lord of this 
desecrated shrine is coming once more to 
His ancient home ; and He comes from the 
bosom of His Eternal Father to this fallen 



134 Viaticum Vitae 

and degraded sanctuary, in favor of a 
single ardent soul! Far above in the 
heavens, the white clouds are parting! 
Kneel! Kneel! O poor, misguided peo- 
ple! Heaven is here, here in your very 
midst, in your desecrated fane! Angels 
are all around you, and do you not see the 
noblest of them all with that far-flashing 
white star in his hand? We ourselves 
must quickly sink in awed and silent ado- 
ration. For Stanislaus no longer weeps. 
He kneels entranced, with hands deep 
folded on his throbbing breast, awaiting 
heaven's highest ministry. And now, his 
head sinks again, his face flames with light, 
and his soul is lost in the possession of its 
God. All heedless once more of those 
about him, he pours forth the most ardent 
and elevated acts of love and thanksgiv- 
ing for the coming of his Savior. And 
have we only seemed to hear celestial 
harmonies, or do the angel choirs really 
hymn on earth the goodness of their 
God? Yes, they have come; myriads 



Viaticum Vitae 135 

of angels have really come, and have 
sung in their own celestial tones this 
moment of infinite beauty! God has so 
loved this weary youth, and has so pitied 
his holy, yet frustrated, love, that a mystic 
consecration has just taken place in 
heaven, and the sweetest of Holy Com- 
munions has taken place on earth. God 
has come to this little child, and floods of 
tenderest consolation inundate the enrap- 
tured soul. And we, after gazing — how 
long or short a time, we know not — are 
once again about to withdraw from rap- 
tures that seem too sacred for all but 
saintly eyes; when, once more, and again 
with seeming precipitancy, like the swift 
remembrance of his morning prayer, the 
duty and the purpose of our gentle saint 
again recall his transported mind, and 
urge him to the instant resumption of 
his painful journey. For he knows that 
there is a task to which he still must bend. 
He knows that the Manna of Heaven is 
meant for the toils of earth; a les- 



136 Viaticum Vitae 

son which every saint has fully learned, 
and one which our own now has- 
tens to carry into instant, earnest execu- 
tion. All abashed and confused by the 
crowds that press around him, he hastens 
to atone for his all too lovely fault of ex- 
cessive union with his God; for he steals, 
with heaving breast and tear-dimmed eyes, 
from the newly consecrated church; and 
gently seeks, with faltering step, to regain 
the now forgotten road, and pursue his 
way to the river town. The simple coun- 
try-folk, whom he now meets again, gaze 
with unbounded admiration upon this 
other and still fairer vision thus vouch- 
safed to their wondering eyes; upon this 
lovely youth, with his tattered garb, his 
dusty, bleeding feet, and pallid cheek; 
and yet with high heaven itself unmistak- 
ably stamped upon his princely brow. 
They think, perhaps, as he seeks to hasten 
away unnoticed, that some haughty sire, 
enraged against his handsome, boyish son, 
has driven him forth in the garb of a slave, 



Viaticum Vitae 137 

to atone for some fancied wrong. No 
thought of real evil could rest in the mind 
after even one glance of those gentle eyes. 
The tenderest pity follows his every step ; 
and yet there is something which says to 
all that, as we ourselves have felt and said 
before, this is one of the most favored of 
all God's earthly children, one of the most 
blessed of all the sons of men. Nor, as 
we have also said, does this deep, instinc- 
tive judgment err. This gentle youth has 
been driven forth, indeed, but principally 
by a watchful Heavenly Father; and 
though for a time he now must bear an 
earthly exile's lot, it is soon to end in 
heaven. It is true that, with this same 
divine permission, he has also been exiled 
by the unmeant cruelty of an earthly par- 
ent's mistaken, obstinate love, and by 
the studied malice of a brother's un- 
natural hate; yet is he guarded by le- 
gions of heaven's angels; guarded and 
guided by heaven itself, throughout the 
whole course of his life's brief expanse, 



138 Viaticum Vitae 

miraculously nourished with heaven's own 
food, and soon, very soon, to be recalled 
to his native land on high. Ere another 
year, those bruised and bleeding feet shall 
no longer press earth's cruel pathways, 
those humble shreds shall give place to 
the splendid robes of Paradise, and those 
gentle eyes shall no longer know even 
their present ecstatic tears. For soon, 
and forever, tearless shall they flash, with 
that Infinite Light which fills and glori- 
fies all, where faith gives place to vision, 
and possession satiates hope, "Where God 
shall wipe away all tears from their eyes : 
and death shall be no more, nor crying, 
nor sorrow shall be any more, for the 
former things are passed away." 1 

Conscious of all this, in our own imper- 
fect way, we reverently follow to the riv- 
er's edge, and across the Danube's now 
sullenly swirling waters; and even, with 
sadly slackening pace, to the very portals 
which open to receive our angelic pil- 

i Apoc. xxi. 4. 



Viaticum Vitae 139 

grim's form ; and close, alas ! to deprive us 
of his blessed presence, and leave us here, 
to think, in sad yet sweet entrancement, 
of all that we have seen and felt. How 
strongly he went, and how swiftly he 
sped! But he is gone from us now; and 
we must yield him up, for a time, to the 
care of saintly Canisius, and to the favored 
companions of his duty and his choice. 
Still, we are not as yet completely be- 
reaved. We shall see him again, if only 
for a few brief, blessed moments, ere the 
greater portals of heaven shall veil him 
at last and forever from the lowly vision 
of earth. 



XVI. PLEADIXGS 



" Sicut . . . ego vivo 
propter Patrem; et qui 
manducat me, et ipse vi- 
vet propter me" 1 



Gextle reader, we have spoken of the 
Holv Viaticum. Indeed, this sacred 
word, so often on our lips, was the very 
first that we were led to utter, when, by 
some hidden impulse moved, we thought 
to write, and tell again this fairest of age- 
old stories. And we have spoken of Stan- 

1 "As ... I live by the Father, so he that eateth 
Me, the same also shall live by Me." — John vi. 58. 

no 



Pleadings 141 

islaus, and have blended these beautiful 
themes. We must now, perhaps, explain, 
and seek to justify more fully, our use of 
this sacred term, and our thought in ap- 
plying it here, to one so young and fair. 
For we have now reached the supreme 
moment in our mystic journey, the mo- 
ment in which our model and guide re- 
ceived the celestial Viaticum of holiest 
Life, And yet, Stanislaus was not dy- 
ing. When he received his God, when he 
thus received what we have called his 
Heavenly Viaticum, he was hastening in 
youthful health and vigor to a life of 
ceaseless toil. But you have, doubtless, 
already anticipated the divine relation; 
yet still we should hope that delight, not 
displeasure, will be found in reverting a 
little more fully to the thought of the 
Holy Viaticum, as the strength of a jour- 
ney on earth, and thus as the food sent by 
heaven to our beautiful saint ; even 
though dark, relentless death has not as 
yet claimed him, nor placed its chill be- 



142 Pleadings 

numbing finger on the generous tides 
which course so eagerly, from the seraphic 
loves of that pure heart, to the lofty 
thoughts that throb beneath those snowy 
marble temples. 

We shall only ask that this splendid 
miraculous Holy Communion, which we 
have been so highly privileged as to wit- 
ness, be not taken alone, since it is only 
one of many; and that its buoyant power 
here be also held as a type of the same 
wondrous effects throughout his whole 
life of union with God. Surely, the Vi- 
aticum's older ideas of strength for even 
an earthly traveler's way, find a true and 
most beautiful meaning here. For Stan- 
islaus was a traveler, indeed; and the 
Most Adorable Sacrament was ever his 
true, his only, Viaticum, his only real 
strength. Many long leagues of the 
Austrian highways still bore the faintly 
graceful impress of his holy footsteps, 
and we ourselves have seen that the Bava- 
rian roads bear silent, yet eloquent, testi- 



Pleadings 143 

mony that his toils were still recent and 
severe ; while the entire beauteous scene in 
the way-side temple has told the full story 
of both his utter natural weakness and his 
tireless supernatural strength. Nor was 
his sacred body the only exile through all 
these countless hours, and all the wide ex- 
panse of those strange, regardless lands. 
His angelic soul was even more alien to 
everything about it than was his almost 
spiritualized body. His very mind and 
heart were fleeing from a world he could 
not love ; and from its falsely gilded max- 
ims, which he could not but abhor. He 
was hastening far away from highest 
earthly state and splendor, in order to 
seek a living entombment of humility, 
abasement, and oblivion. His only wish 
for earth was to become the lowliest mem- 
ber of the society which bore his Savior's 
name; and he was thus, in very truth, as 
far as this world is concerned, only an 
outcast and a wanderer; only an exile, 
both in body and in mind; knowing his 



144 Pleadings 

own soul's deep desolation, and knowing 
that its desolation must endure. Al- 
though still very young, he had already 
and fully verified in himself what we so sel- 
dom learn, the real spirit and sense of 
Saint Peter's inspired and so sadly ad- 
monitive words entreating us to remember 
that, being strangers and pilgrims here on 
earth, we should mold our lives accord- 
ingly ; and none, more fully than our gen- 
tle, heaven-aspiring saint, had felt the 
deep truth and the sadness of that other 
inspired seraph's yearning words, "While 
we are in the body we are absent from the 
Lord." * Who, therefore, shall say that 
this innocent child, this momentary exile 
in a world that was not worthy of him, 
this tender lily on a storm-swept moun- 
tain-side, did not need a celestial Viati- 
cum, did not need heaven's own nourish- 
ment for his heaven-fainting soul? He 
himself, in this very sense, also, had fully 
sounded both life's deep mystery and life's 

i 2 Cor. v. 6. 



Pleadings 145 

high demand. Not from linguistic lore, 
nor in explicit terms, but from the un- 
mistakable longings and promptings of his 
own faint heart and anxious mind, he 
knew that life needed some support from 
on high, and that his soul must depend for 
its life and its strength on the Food alone 
fitted for altitudes so lofty as those where 
its utter detachment from earth had 
caused it to dwell, He knew that in life, 
not less than in death, man has need of 
his God; and whenever deprived for a 
time of his Savior, through the most bit- 
ter and crudest hate, his ever death-like 
faintness and weakness had overwhelm- 
ingly taught him the divine truth of the 
words we have used on an earlier page. 
"Except you eat the flesh of the Son of 
man, and drink His blood, you shall not 
have life in you" ; * and he thus had 
often marveled that the gentle Savior 
should have ever deemed it necessary, 
even in the earliest days of His Church, 

i John vi. 54. 



146 Pleadings 

so fully to promulgate this daily demon- 
strated fact. And oh ! how often and how 
deeply had he pondered the plenary truth 
and beauty of that fondly completing as- 
surance, "For My flesh is meat indeed: 
and My blood is drink indeed" ; * as well 
as the mystic force, meant for earth, not 
less than for heaven, of those still other 
wondrous words — couched, not in the fu- 
ture, but in the very present — "He that 
eateth My flesh, and drinketh My blood, 
hath everlasting life"; 2 hath it, that is, 
here and now, on earth, as well as in the 
future in heaven: here, imperfectly, yet 
truly; there, both perfectly and truly; 
with only the momentary deposition of the 
body between the two; for "I," saith the 
Lord, "will raise him up in the last day," 3 
What an irresistible force and sacred fas- 
cination these direct, unequivocal words of 
his Savior must have had for one whose 
invariable response to every solicitation of 
earthly things had always been the simple 

i John vi. 56. 2 John vi. 55. 3 John vi. 55. 



Pleadings 147 

declaration, "I was made for eternity, and 
not for time." He already lived that 
eternal life, because his life was the flesh 
and the blood of the Son of man. He 
had felt all this, even in the peace of his 
distant, secluded home ; but its entire hid- 
den force had become fully apparent, only 
as he walked and slept, a stranger far from 
all earthly ties. He had learned full 
well what it was that constituted the soul's 
only real support in all its earthly wander- 
ings ; and thus, through all his weary path- 
way across the wide plain, in the mighty 
wood, or as he knelt entranced in some 
shadowy cathedral, he saw and knew no 
beauty, save that which streamed from the 
thought or the altar of his God. And, as 
we ourselves have seen, God Himself 
most wondrously confirmed this deep in- 
stinct of his faithful, loving heart, and 
bent to his wish; and the traveler's Viat- 
icum came, and we have witnessed one of 
his angelic Holy Communions, feeling 
sure that our own few privileged hours 



148 Pleadings 

have often been as sweetly repeated in 
many other lonely, unobserved stretches of 
his silent way; doubtless, at times, under 
no other dome than that of the heavens 
themselves; and we know that what has 
sustained him here has also been the con- 
stant secret of his constantly wonderful 
strength. 

We have seen, too, that when once the 
desire of his heart had thus been fulfilled, 
when once he possessed his Beloved, 
though ready to sink with exhaustion the 
moment before, his buoyant step and tire- 
less power told that, like Elias, "He 
walked in the strength of that food . . . 
unto the mount of God," 1 For, in very 
literal truth, our saint, thus nourished 
with this Heavenly Viaticum, walked 
the lofty mountains of his way with, and 
in, and by, his God. Strengthened by 
the same heavenly food, his exiled soul 
traveled incomparably further still; for 
it thus received the power to pierce far 

i 3 Kings xix. 8. 



Pleadings 149 

beyond the loftiest peaks of earth, and 
to rise at last even to the mystic moun- 
tains of the God-head, whose all-glorious 
summits are reared above the gleaming 
heights of heaven itself. His chosen and 
beloved Viaticum, therefore, not only sus- 
tained the fragile frame of Stanislaus, but 
also filled his pilgrim soul with divinest 
light and beauty; in whose resplendent 
truth, earth's even greatest things stood 
weakly forth in all their native nothing- 
ness before him ; causing his pure heart to 
turn wearily aside, and to yearn only the 
more strongly for the things that dwell 
above. Thus fortified by the exile's true 
strength, and guided by the exile's true 
light, he trod under foot, with scarcely an 
effort, not only the stern mountains of his 
material journey, but also the incompar- 
ably more lofty and more perilous heights 
of false earthly ideals; where many a 
mightier frame, but lowlier spirit, has sunk 
into midnight dangers, and has died un- 
done. Verily, Stanislaus was a traveler; 



150 Pleadings 

and verily, for him, the Ever Adorable 
Sacrament of the Altar, the flesh and the 
blood of his God, was the true, the divine, 
the All-Holy Viaticum of Life. And 
surely, for us, it will ever be a most blessed 
thought to link this marvelous angelic 
beauty of earth with the infinite beauty of 
heaven. 



XVII. FALLING SHADOWS 



"Et non cognoscet am- 
plius locum suum" 1 



But, kind reader, will it be equally well 
to blight this delicately beauteous picture 
with the pallid hues of the tomb? Must 
we draw at last, over those so purely 
lustrous eyes, the eternal veil of pitiless 
death? Can we ask him who, on his 
lonely mountain height, has taught us so 
well the consummate beauty and worth of 
the glorious Viaticum of Life, to lead us, 
now, adown the dark valley, and there to 

l "And he shall know his place no more." — Ps. cii. 16. 
1$1 



152 Falling Shadows 

fall fatally stricken before us, in the 
bloom of his beauteous youth, to teach us, 
with not less of power, the final deep les- 
sons of life's sanctified close, the infinite 
beauty and strength of the mystic Viati- 
cum of Death ? Ah ! yes, gentle reader, we 
can, and we must ; for death's dark shadow 
is already upon him, without any wish of 
our own; and his footsteps, though noise- 
less and lightsome, are swiftly yet silently 
seeking the grave. 

The final, fully resonant chord of life's 
true harmony can be struck only in heaven, 
though many of its sweetest tones are 
lent, at times, to even the dominant dis- 
cords of earth; and the sacred beauty of 
Stanislaus has now mounted so high that 
it irresistibly claims its final, celestial com- 
pletion. We, therefore, who love him, 
must now touch, once again, the same 
saddening notes that wailed in our open- 
ing words. So far as this world's fleeting 
life is concerned, we have all seen the 
truth of the Scriptural maxim, "Favor is 



Falling Shadows 153 

deceitful, and beauty is vain" ; 1 and even 
the sanctified and graceful refinement lent 
by heaven to the beauteous material being 
of Stanislaus is, after all, only a kind of 
gentle delusion; a delicate prelude — but 
only a prelude — to a gloriously genuine 
type, to be actually realized, only in those 
wondrous realms of true and imperishable 
beauty which lie just beyond the chasten- 
ing grave. Indeed, we all know that the 
fairer the flower the sooner must it fade; 
and Stanislaus is far too delicately beauti- 
ful, even in the sense of this world, to 
much longer withstand the chill and the 
gloom of arid earthly scenes and of icy 
earthly hearts. We have already felt that 
we could not possess him much longer. In 
truth, we have known, though we dared 
not confess, that he really was dying now, 
before our very eyes. We have felt the 
desolate, saddening truth that in a few 
short months, earth shall know him no 
more. Though, therefore, the hour at 

i Prov. xxxi. 30. 



154 Falling Shadows 

length has come to change the long tenor 
of our sacred theme, and to think of our 
Savior again as the wayfarer's friend, only 
in regard to that last great journey which 
unites the nearer bounds of eternity and 
of time, our exemplar must still remain 
the same. We must not, and should not, 
leave our gentle saint ; for that love which 
is stronger than death should pass through 
its portals with him, and share his eternal 
life. Piety, too, not less than affection, 
may well wish to remain at his side ; for in 
his most sacred passing, this other mighty 
aspect, also, of the Most Holy Viaticum 
is soon to be most fully and most beauti- 
fully verified and most vividly portrayed. 
In very truth, this angelic youth had never 
lived, in the common, earthly sense of that 
term. Unconsciously, his whole brief 
span on earth had been summed up in St. 
Paul's "desire to be dissolved, and to be 
with Christ." ! Like that same great 
seraph of divinest love, he could also have 

i Phil. i. 23. 



Falling Shadows 155 

truly protested, "To me, to live is Christ, 
and to die is gain," * From his first Holy 
Communion to his last, it might have 
been most truly said that he was always 
receiving the Viaticum of the Dying, as 
well as that of the Living ; for his soul was 
ever struggling to free itself more and 
more fully from the depressing weight of 
the body; and his entire being was striv- 
ing to rise ever more and more rapidly, 
above all the fading things of the earth, 
to the blessed immortality of heaven. He 
was ever more and more fully dying, that 
he might the more fully and the sooner 
live ; and death, in all its own stern reality, 
shall soon stand cold and silent before his 
eager gaze and our own tear-dimmed eyes. 
Its rapid and real approach warns us no 
longer to defer our desolate preparation 
for the confronting of bright and beauti- 
ful life with dark, repellent death; but to 
follow, instead, the wise and orderly pre- 
vision of God Himself, by remembering 
i Phil. i. 21. 



156 Falling Shadows 

that it was in the last two years of the 
saint's earthly life that many of heaven's 
most wondrous favors were lavished upon 
him; and that the Savior thus often and 
miraculously came, precisely at a period 
in which the swift mounting ardors of 
seraphic love were testing ever more and 
more perilously the frail and yielding ties 
that linked the sacred body of Stanislaus 
with his still more sacred soul. An ever 
increasing and ever more beautiful, resem- 
blance may thus be deeply marked between 
the later wondrous Communions of this ra- 
diant soul and the Holy Viaticum as ap- 
plied to the dying hour; with the further 
undoubted consequence and conclusion 
that these marvelous unions with God had 
a special reference and a special relation 
to the rapidly approaching moment when, 
through the finally irresistible impetus and 
excess of the higher sanctity and the 
higher love, the already enfeebled bonds 
of his earthly being would at last be 
wholly sundered, and his pure young soul, 



Falling Shadows 157 

leaving his beautiful body for a time, 
would mount in unimpeded flight to God. 
Yes, whatever is intrinsically and loftily 
true possesses a certain infinity; since it 
cannot but share, to some degree, the il- 
limitable grandeur of Him who is the se- 
cret of all beauty and all power; and the 
lives of the saints thus share in the infinite 
magnificence of God Himself, and must, 
therefore, yield an inexhaustible wealth of 
spiritual suggestiveness and beauty. 
And, surely, a most exalted and refined 
illustration of divinest magnificence thus 
lent to a faithful soul has been given by 
Stanislaus, in each ever mounting devel- 
opment of his exquisite piety, iridescent 
with each more delicate charm; and espe- 
cially in the splendid effects wrought in 
his soul by the miraculous receptions of 
his Divine Lord which marked his mar- 
velous later life. In these wondrously 
sacred final years, he had more than once 
not only received the Bread of the Angels 
in the most unusual manner; but, as if 



158 Falling Shadows 

to indicate that he already pertained 
more fully to heaven than to even the 
holiest things of earth, he had also re- 
peatedly received it from ministering 
angelic hands ; and, on one supremely and 
ineffably entrancing occasion, to which we 
have already referred, the great Queen 
of the Angels herself, the very Mother of 
God, gave him Holy Communion, in the 
most deeply engaging sense that she visi- 
bly resigned her beauteous heavenly infant 
to the timidly outstretched arms of her 
fond earthly child; a form of divine 
union surely not less fruitful of love or 
of grace than the veiled sacramental 
blending of the soul with its God; and 
not, therefore, less worthy of this holiest 
name, not less worthy of being considered, 
at this time of the saint's waning life, as 
a most tender and beautiful Holy Viat- 
icum; the more so, since this wondrous 
visit of his infant God, and the first of 
these angelic ministrations took place 
when Stanislaus really lay most griev- 



Falling Shadows 159 

ously ill, and when he himself was wait- 
ing only to die. Mary's visit, moreover, 
and these later wayside Communions, 
were all closely connected with his com- 
ing admission into a society in whose 
membership he was to take only the first 
few preparatory paces preliminary, not 
to a long life on earth, but to his rapidly 
approaching entrance into heaven. By 
divine ordination, he was thus to linger 
on earth even less than a year after his final 
earthly retirement; and this, not so much 
for himself, as to show, with resplendent 
beauty, what a novice in the new society 
should be. He was then to pass, his evan- 
escent task fulfilled, to his celestial home, 
and to the high supernatural companion- 
ship proper to his pure, angelic soul. 
Ere then, other hundreds of leagues were 
yet to bring him, still a pilgrim and still 
a postulant, to the Eternal City; in 
whose maternal bosom his loved Mother's 
behest was at last to be fulfilled; and 
where her quickly succeeding Assump- 



160 Falling Shadows 

tion was to mark at once the close of his 
earthly career and the dawn of his natal 
day in heaven. His Guardian's frequently 
visible presence, too, in these most holy 
later years seems only another sign of the 
greater and more solicitous vigilance 
proper for this final and critical part of 
the way. And on this last intervening 
link of his earthly journey, in his path- 
way to Rome, the eternal gateway to his 
eternal home, his sole strength was to be 
what it had always been, the Most 
Blessed Sacrament, the weary earthly 
pilgrim's only true Viaticum, the Viat- 
icum of fainting and faltering Life; a 
Viaticum, nevertheless, intended, in God's 
ever-thoughtful, infinitely wise, and well- 
ordered providence, in the case of our 
saint, as in our own, to lead unerringly to 
that other and last divine Visitation, the 
all-beauteous Viaticum of Death. 



XVIII VIATICUM MORTIS 



"Illuminare his qui in 
tenebris et in umbra 
mortis sedent" 1 



And now, far away, on a bright As- 
sumption morn, far away in beauteous 
Italy, and in the Eternal City itself, 
where the Quirinal Hill rises gently, to 
receive the first opal tints of the deep- 
mantling Italian sky, a gentle and grace- 
ful youth lay dying. Grave priests and 
saddened fellow-novices stood silently 

i "To enlighten them that sit in darkness and in the 
shadow of death." — Luke i. 79. 

161 



162 Viaticum Mortis 

and tearfully meditative at his bedside, 
or reverently bent low, to receive some 
last devout expression, or render some 
final, delicately thoughtful service of 
sympathy and love. For it was only too 
evident that the arduous course of high 
Christian perfection so nobly entered, was 
here to find its final term, before it had 
seemed to have well begun. And any- 
one favored enough to have seen the 
beauteous pilgrim youth of the Austrian 
highways would have easily recognized 
here again, in these blanched, yet super- 
naturally refined and peaceful features, 
the angelic lineaments of the gentle 
Saint Stanislaus Kostka; and thus know- 
ing his beautiful story, would also at once 
have divined the reason and cause of an 
intense, yet restrained, exultation and 
happiness, which marked even the sad- 
dened faces of all, and of none more than 
that of the dying youth himself; a sense 
of sacred, triumphant joy which gleamed 
in every eye, and only increased with each 



Viaticum Mortis 163 

added moment of this undoubted ap- 
proach of death. 

For all here felt — as we ourselves felt 
so long before — that they were the 
privileged witnesses of most extraor- 
dinary supernatural favors. All knew 
that this temporal dissolution of the body 
was also the eternal birthday of a glori- 
ous soul. They knew that in a few 
brief moments this all but sinless being, 
dying here by a law of excessive love, 
rather than by that of our common doom, 
would be in heaven, assisting at the 
glorious Assumption feast of Mary, at 
the very side of her who was too sinless 
to die, even at love's supreme behest ; and 
whom he had always so justly and so 
tenderly called his dearest Mother. 
They knew that, like a little child, he had 
trustingly written to her the day before, 
while still in perfect health and strength, 
telling her he had already been kept too 
long away from her dear side, and en- 
treating that he might be detained no 



164 Viaticum Mortis 

longer; but might through her love, be 
allowed to be really with her, on the day 
of her glorious feast. And they knew 
that his present sacred passing was only 
her prompt affirmative response. Yester- 
day, he was strong and well, with 
youth's own springing health and vigor. 
To-day shall have no evening for that 
glorious soul. His earthly moments are 
now but few, indeed; for, while we have 
been speaking, Death, the Last Great 
Sanctifier, has been softly, yet steadily, 
setting eternity's stranger and higher 
seal of beauty upon the faultless features 
that no earthly illness has ever been al- 
lowed to mar; and has thus mystically 
prepared them for each more delicate 
loveliness of heaven, so soon to invest 
them with its own transfiguring and fade- 
less charm. Those drooping lids now 
closing calmly to all the things of earth, 
are also about to unfold amidst scenes of 
rapturous celestial beauty; and those 
veiled orbs from which every light of 



Viaticum Mortis 165 

earth is fading, will soon be flashing re- 
splendent with the untold glory of an- 
other world. It is time to think of the 
Holy Viaticum, and for us to bend once 
more before it, as it comes to him now, 
to take its last place, as the mighty 
Companion of that wondrous journey, 
Death. 

For, with this most beautiful scene, we 
fully return to our first sad thought of 
this most sacred word. This is death; 
not, indeed, as we usually see it, but not 
the less truly death; and this is the same 
Viaticum of which we first spoke, though 
in one of its highest forms. He who so 
gladly comes to even the most abandoned 
sinner, will not desert this faithful, loving 
child. And his last Viaticum shall not be 
unlike his first ; for Mary shall not be ab- 
sent from it, and his own preparation, as 
well as God's last earthly favors, shall 
not be unlike those other gloriously mirac- 
ulous anticipations of this supremely 
beauteous hour; but will only form their 



166 Viaticum Mortis 

proper supernatural culmination and 
their fitting ultimate term. 

For Mary came again in these last 
earthly moments, surrounded by angels 
and saints. The Divine Hostage of his 
soul already rested in his ecstatic bosom, 
given now by the consecrated ministry of 
his other tenderly beloved Mother, the 
Holy Church of God, in whose maternal 
bosom he had received his first graces, and 
now, for the last time, reposed; that 
gentlest Mother to whose ineffably solici- 
tous care even Mary could now safely 
resign, as God Himself had already re- 
signed, for these last and most sacred mo- 
ments, even this incomparable treasure of 
heavenly innocence and beauty. 

And death really came at last, though 
the yearning saint sank to his last repose 
so calmly and so sweetly that none could 
mark the wondrous moment in which his 
gentle eyes failed at last and forever for 
the common light of earth, and began to 
flash with the immortal glory of heaven. 



Viaticum Mortis 167 

Only when they no longer responded to 
Mary's beloved image — as one of his fond 
chroniclers has so beautifully said — were 
the watchers sure that he was gazing upon 
the supremely lovely original. Only 
when he no longer murmured his words 
of sacred love, did they remember that 
this must be a slumber much more deep 
than even that of the mountain's midnight; 
and that its awakening would summon 
those sacred members, not to any further 
earthly effort, but to heaven's gleaming 
heights. Only when that seraphic breast 
grew steadily chill, even after Holy Com- 
munion, did they realize that its thanks- 
giving was being made in heaven, and 
that the silent, pulseless heart would leap 
into rapturous, ecstatic action again, only 
under the Resurrection's eternally vivi- 
fying touch. But they then knew, in- 
deed, that the glowing cheek and the 
still remaining smile of peace were only the 
last fair traces of the soul's blissful part- 
ing, only a last deep promise made, as it 



168 Viaticum Mortis 

were, to that gentle, beautiful body which 
had so faithfully and so constantly ful- 
filled its Creator's ennobling injunction 
to "present your bodies a living sacrifice, 
holy, pleasing unto God"; 1 and they 
knew that the deep, strange beauty which 
hovered about it now was but the heavenly 
presage and pledge of what it would be, 
when the delicately just goodness of God 
would restore it, on the day of final award, 
to the blest companion of its faultless 
earthly life. 

Stanislaus is not a traveler now. He 
no longer has need of the sacred Viaticum 
of Life or of that of Death. His life is 
blended into the life of God ; and he lives, 
and shall forever live, in its infinite glory 
and power. He is at home. At home 
forever. He is at rest. At rest forever, 
in the bosom of his God. Earth shall 
never feel his lightsome footstep again. 
The priceless gift of his supernatural 
beauty has been eternally withdrawn from 

i Rom. xii. 1. 



Viaticum Mortis 169 

a world too carnal to recognize its 
supernal charm. We have been privi- 
leged far beyond the most of men, by 
even our brief imperfect vision of its 
magnificently glorious splendor; but our 
only further hope must lie beyond the 
grave. The clouds have veiled him for- 
ever from our earthly view. He lived, and 
he died, in the strength and the love of 
the Most Blessed Sacrament; and all that 
we saw by river or plain was simply its 
beauty transfused to his soul. Truest 
Life and truest Death stood side by side 
throughout his entire life, and at his holy 
parting; and the infinite Reason for both, 
the Heavenly Viaticum of Life and of 
Death, had ever lain secure, deep hid in 
his heart of hearts. We have meant that 
each word fondly telling his praise should 
return, like his thought, to its infinite 
origin; and thus trace his beauty to its 
heavenly source. The mind sinks ex- 
hausted at the thought of his further 
magnificences, and leaves them untold, as 



170 Viaticum Mortis 

it must, for some hour in heaven's deep 
vales. But even he knows now, as not 
even he knew then, all that was meant by 
these living and dying visits of God. Oh ! 
that he would but speak, and tell us, who 
still falter and fall, the strength and the 
power and beauty of Him who stands 
ever faithful at our perilous side from 
life's first weak breath to its last! 



XIX. PILGRIMS OF EMMAUS 



"Mane nobiscum, quoni- 
am advesperascit . . . 
et intravit cum Mis." 1 



The storms of centuries have since 
swept our saintly pilgrim's erstwhile 
mountain pallet, and the Danube still 
frets and rolls from the Black Forest to 
the Euxine's heaving bosom. But they 
hold no memorials of the heavenly youth 
who once blessed them awhile with his 
gentle presence, as he rapidly passed on 

i "Stay with us, because it is towards evening . . . 
and He went in with them." — Luke xxiv. 29. 

171 



172 Pilgrims of Emmaus 

his heavenward way. Only the lilies that 
bloom each year from Vienna down to 
Rome seem to retain in perpetual honor 
the sweet memory of him who once formed 
their so fitting companion; unless in- 
deed, the violets, too, as they shrink 
among the rocks, are wishing, if they 
could but dare, to blend their own 
subtlest purple with the lily's heart of 
snow, and thus record forever the deli- 
cate saintly blushes that so often rose and 
mantled on his stainless cheek and brow. 
The glorious Faith, in its deathless life, 
has risen again in some of those desolate 
lands ; and the Lord once more is reigning 
in some of His desecrated fanes. But 
Stanislaus is gone, and the rude, carnal 
world has paid no more attention to his 
beauteous death than it did to his beau- 
teous life, because it has never understood 
either. 

Yet, not so with all; and no fervent 
soul need feel that this gentle saint is 
separated from it wholly and forever; 



Pilgrims of Emmaus 173 

that he never looks down to the earth he 
once trod ; or that he can now be all care- 
less or indifferent to those whom God 
still loves even here. Do not the re- 
membered pangs of his own bitter earthly 
exile melt his gentle soul with tender com- 
passion for us who still must wander and 
struggle in life's desolate pathways? Is 
the great Communion of Saints an empty 
doctrine wholly null and void? Ah, no! 
In the higher light and purer love of 
heaven, that gentle heart cannot be less 
than it was here; and we therefore know 
that we still possess, and shall always 
possess, the exalted care and affection of 
that generous, noble soul. The only real 
difference is that its faithful, unfaltering 
kindness is now of the higher, invisible 
order. 

On our own part, should we not ask 
ourselves whether these high things have 
not a meaning, a reference, a lesson, for 
us, who still must travel the years and 
their changes, growing weaker with each 



174 Pilgrims of Emmaus 

added toil? The answer, surely, must be, 
"Yes." What are they? Each soul 
must give its own response, though all 
will be rich with heaven's own grace and 
beauty. But, surely, we all should un- 
doubtingly see, in our ever increasing sor- 
rows, a continual, serious warning that 
even in life we are in the very midst of 
death; that each day brings us greater 
and greater struggles, but less and less 
of courage and readiness to meet them; 
and that there can be but one end for 
ever increasing burdens to be borne by 
ever decreasing strength. We should al- 
ways strive to remember that, as the 
Scripture, using the words of Lysias says, 
"We decay daily, and our provision of 
food is small, and the place we lay siege 
to is strong, and it lieth upon us to take 
order for the affairs of the kingdom." * 
Yes, the affairs of a kingdom more noble 
than earth ever has seen, daily demand 
our deepest and best consideration; a 

1 1 Mach. vi. 57. 



Pilgrims of Emmaus 175 

kingdom that Christ Himself has said 
"suffereth violence," and of which He 
further declares that, "the violent bear it 
away." * But, above all, we should ever 
remember and ponder His other, sup- 
plementary words, that the severely test- 
ing struggle thus indicated cannot be 
borne without heavenly food ; that we can- 
not be victors, without Him in our 
hearts; for His loving, yet warning, de- 
cree must ever return, "Except you eat 
the flesh of the Son of man, and drink His 
blood, you shall not have life in you." 2 

But with all that is noble within us, 
we should render Him thanks for this in- 
exorable spiritual necessity, and still 
more for the wondrously supernatural 
Means which He gave, in order to meet 
its exalted, celestial yet tender, demand. 
For man is too loftily free merely to eat 
and to sleep and to die, like the senseless 
brutes of the field. His food and his life 
must be such as prepare for the infinite 

i Matt. xi. 12. 2 John vi. 54. 



176 Pilgrims of Emmaus 

glory of heaven. But this splendid 
destiny's dangers share its magnificent 
sweep, and dispute until death for an 
eternally fatal supremacy; while the ruin 
of souls all around us proves that not all 
these fell efforts are vain. We are gross 
with the world and the body. Sin tainted 
our earliest breath; and we ourselves, in 
an obstinate, insanely perverse volition, 
follow more willingly the lower demands 
of the flesh. We desire most strongly 
that which is present and seen. We 
loathe what is distant, and reject what is 
even but slightly unknown; while heaven 
is hidden behind the dark tomb, and Jesus 
refuses His vision of beauty to eyes that 
are carnal with sin. Unless, then, we 
seek some celestial refinement for hearts 
that are selfish and minds that are dull, 
we shall hopelessly grovel in earth's basest 
slime, and attain to true human stature, 
only as eternally suffering victims of 
eternally magnificent pain; for each of 
our great possibilities involves an in- 



Pilgrims of Emmaus 177 

finite attribute, and Justice or Love, both 
divine, must finally reign. 

Yet this Lord of all power has loved 
us, and has given Himself for our 
strength; did not our unreasoning pride, 
so unfounded, render even His infinite 
action so vain. "In the world, you shall 
have distress,'' He consolingly said, "but 
have confidence, I have overcome the 
world"; * thus speaking, to show He had 
conquered it, not for Himself alone, but 
also, and even more fully, for us ; so that, 
through all our harassing troubles, we 
can feel that we, also, shall conquer in 
His glorious name. But, by His own 
divine ordination, as we have with all cer- 
tainty seen, He must be received in Life's 
sacred Viaticum, He must come to our 
hearts, in order to help us most fully 
there; and He must rest often within us, 
if He ever is fully to reign. 

"In this sign shalt thou conquer," the 
heavens declared, in the earlier, less spir- 

i John xvi. 33. 



178 Pilgrims of Emmaus 

itual days, while the Cross shone resplen- 
dent within their blue depths; because at 
that time a world crude and carnal was 
yet to be drawn to Christ's standard by 
open, visible means. Our own more 
delicate presage of supernatural victory 
must lie in the small white Host deep 
veiled by the Altar's sacred seclusion ; for 
ours are days of more intimate, hidden, 
personal struggle; these are the later, 
more difficult and dangerous, yet loftier 
hours, in which even faith must be 
constantly challenged by the seeming 
abasement and absence of God; days, 
nevertheless, most fully foreseen and most 
fully intended by the omniscient Lord, 
when, spanning the centuries, and speak- 
ing to us, He so solemnly said, "Blessed 
are they that have not seen, and have be- 
lieved." * Yea, blessed, thrice blessed, are 
they who, throughout all the ages of this 
coarsely visible maze, can rise over all, and 
adore, in loftiest spirit and truth, the in- 

i John xx. 29, 



Pilgrims of Emmaus 179 

visible, infinite God! And blessed, a 
thousand times blessed, are they who still 
feel, with hearts all aflame, the fond 
wounds in the hands and the side of their 
Savior, though now buried deep in a 
Sacrament's silent snow. And blessed, 
with an infinite blessing, is the once 
proudly sceptical heart that at last, in the 
fulness of love, can say to Him there, with 
Saint Thomas, "My Lord and my God!" * 
For though that Humanity, veiled by 
the skies, shall never again walk the earth 
amongst men, He yet dwells in our midst, 
our Emmanuel, "God with us," as Isaias 
so loved to proclaim Him, 2 though but seen 
through the ages, and written in ancient, 
prophetical lore; and now, the great 
figure fulfilled, though the world has 
grown darker without, the pure soul shall 
see and possess Him, in His covert of 
Love, 3 as the Savior gave promise, 4 and 
Stanislaus saw, with a mystic and marvel- 

i John xx. 28. 3 Is. iv. 6. 

2 Is. vii. 14; viii. 8. 4 Matt. v. 8. 



180 Pilgrims of Emmaus 

ous clearness, all sufficient to preface the 
unlimited glory of His heavenly home ; 
and even our own lowly hearts, deep 
blessed by His presence, may glow like a 
seraph's before the white Altar as it 
flashes bright flecked with the crimson of 
heaven, and may kindle most deeply and 
purely within us, through the harsh outer 
world's dreary doubting and gloom ; as the 
Master, though hidden, speaks low to our 
listening souls, and opens the sense of the 
Scriptures, as He walks at our side in the 
rapturous bliss of our heavenly way. 1 

When, therefore, hard pressed from 
without and within, undone by the heat 
and the wounds of the world's mortal con- 
flict, we are faint, and seem ready to fall ; 
we should haste, at each lull in the pitiless 
strife, to the Altar's cool shade, and drink 
deep at the spring of our Savior's torn 
side, at those wounds which He, also, re- 
ceived from that same deicide world 
which now seeks Him again in ourselves, 

i Luke xxiv. 32. 



Pilgrims of Emmaus 181 

His members of flesh. At those heavenly 
fountains empurpled with infinite grace, 
we should seek the sole strength that can 
serve in a combat so deadly; and thus, 
with intelligence, love, and respect, most 
eagerly recognize, revere, and receive the 
all-beauteous, all-tender, refreshing, con- 
soling, and strengthening Viaticum of 
even our present so lowly and seemingly 
ignominious life. 

And when the long struggle is nearing 
its end; when our foes have been weak- 
ened, and we are weak, too ; when youth's 
eagle glance has forever been dimmed, 
and manhood's firm vigor is gone; when 
our step has grown slow from our plod- 
ding so far, and the tide of our life pulses 
feebly in a chilled and a timorous breast; 
we still may retain at least strength to 
repeat, and now with the deepest and 
fondest of meaning, our faltering heart's 
last, lonely appeal, "Mane nobiscum," 
Domine, "quoniam advesperascit, et in- 
clinata est jam dies." "Stay with us," O 



182 Pilgrims of Emmaus 

Lord, "because it is towards evening, and 
the day is now far spent." * 

And, surely, regarding the final, the last 
dread hour, when everything earthly has 
come to a close, and we ourselves can no 
longer record even holiest thought; some 
kind future hand may tremblingly write of 
us, and of our deep-yearning, surprised, 
and delighted love, as we now so fondly 
write and read of others, "Et intravit 
cum illis," "And He went in with them." 2 
Surely, we, too, as He comes to our side, 
and prepares the last Food of the soul's 
weary exile, shall most lovingly recognize 
the gentle Master again in the breaking of 
Bread 3 for our heavenward journey; and 
surely, when He afterwards fades from 
our dying eyes, 4 and His visible presence 
is lost in the depths of our chastened and 
penitent souls, we may sink without fear, 
even to death's fatal slumber, in the out- 
spreading arms of the failing heart's 

i Luke xxiv. 29. 3 Luke xxiv. 31, 35. 

2 Luke xxiv. 29. 4 Luke xxiv. 31. 



Pilgrims of Emmaus 183 

Paraclete, and exulting awake for eter- 
nity's ominous course, sustained and al- 
lured by the all-tender, all-beautiful 
Viaticum of calmest and holiest Death! 
Possessing the glorious Reality, may we 
not feel, in our own so deeply blessed 
souls, what the incomparably less fortu- 
nate, yet still rapturous, Psalmist could 
see, and could say, only in pale, far-dis- 
tant vision, "For though I should walk in 
the midst of the shadow of death, I will 
fear no evils, for Thou art with me." * 

Surely, we may hope that Stanislaus 
will pray for us, that Mary will watch 
over us, and that our Savior will come to 
us, both in life and in death; and even 
more surely in life than in death, since the 
struggle is longer and deeper, and the 
peril more pressing and dread! And 
thus, surely, as the Master intended, both 
for nations and men, throughout our 
whole earthly career, in its noon-day and 
night, in its joy and its sorrow, we all may 

IPs. xxii. 4. 



184 Pilgrims of Emmaus 

receive, with courage and strength, this 
heavenly nourishment, this ineffably- 
sacred provision for our earthly and 
heavenly way, this first sad, then most 
beautiful, Viaticum Vitse Mortisque, the 
Holy Viaticum of Life as of Death. 

"Tantum ergo Sacramentum 
Veneremur cernui/' 

"Before a Sacrament so great 
Let us then adoring bow." 




PRINTED BY BEXZTGER BROTHERS, XETV YORK. 



Standard Catholic Books 

PUBLISHED BY 

BENZIGER BROTHERS, 

Cincinnati: NEW YORK: Chicago: 

343 MAIN ST. 36 & 38 BARCLAY ST. 211-213 MADISON ST. 



DOCTRINE, INSTRUCTION, DEVOTION. 

Abandonment. Caussade, S.J. net, o 50 

Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. Tesniere. net, 1 25 

Alphonsus Liguori, Works of St. 22 vols., each, net, 1 50 
Anecdotes and Examples Illustrating the Catholic Cate- 
chism. Spirago. net, 1 50 
Apostles' Creed, The. Miiller, C.SS.R. net, 1 10 
Art of Profiting by Our Faults. Tissot. net, o 50 
Beginnings of Christianity. Shahan. net, 2 00 
Benedicenda: Rules and Ceremonies to be observed in some of 
the Principal Functions of the Roman Pontifical and Ro- 
man Ritual. Rev. A. J. Schulte. net, 1 50 
Bible History, o 50 
Bible History, Practical Explanation. Nash. net, 1 50 
Bible, The Holy. i 00 
Book of the Professed. 

Vol. I. net, o 75 

Vol. II. Vol. III. Each, net, o 75 

Boys and Girls' Mission Book. Redemptorist Fathers. o 40 

Bread of Life, The. 30 Complete Communion Books, net, o 75 

Catechism Explained, The. Spirago-Clarke. net, 2 50 

Catholic Girls' Guide. Lasance. net, 1 00 

Catholic Belief. Faa di Bruno. Paper, 0.25; 100 copies, 15 00 

Cloth, 0.50; 25 copies, 7 50 

Catholic Ceremonies and Explanation of the Ecclesiastical 

Year. Durand. Paper, 0.30; 25 copies, 4 50 

Cloth, 0.60; 25 copies, 9 00 

Catholic Practice at Church and at Home. Klauder. 

Paper, 0.30; 25 copies, 4 50 

Cloth, 0.60; 25 copies, 9 00 

Catholic Teaching for Children. Winifride Wray. o 40 

Catholic Worship. Rev. R. Brennan, LL.D. 

Paper, 0.20; 100 copies, , 12 00 

Cloth, 0.30; 100 copies, 18 00 

Ceremonial for Altar Boys. Britt, O.S.B. o 35 

Characteristics of True Devotion. Grou, S.J. net, o 75 

Cistercian Order, The. By a Secular Priest. net, o 60 

Child of Mary. Prayer-Book. o 60 

Christian Doctrine, Spirago's Method of. Edited by Bishop 
Meesmer. net, 1 50 





3 75 




6 oo 




7 5V- 




3 75 




6 oo 


net, 


I 10 


net, 


o 75 



Christian Father. Cramer. Paper, 0.25; 25 copies, 

Cloth, 0.40; 25 copies, 
Christian Home. McFaul, D.D. 0.10; per 100, 
Christian Mother. Cramer. Paper, 0.25; 25 copies, 

Cloth, 0.40; 25 copies, 
Church and Her Enemies. Miiller, C.SS.R. 
Comedy of English Protestantism. Marshall. 
Confession. Paper, 0.05; per 100, net, 3 50 

Confession and its Benefits. Girardey. o 25 

Confirmation. Paper, 0.05; per 100, net, 3 50 

Communion. Paper, 0.05; per 100, net, 3 50 

Consecranda: Rites and Ceremonies observed at the Conse- 
cration of Churches, Altars, Altar Stones and Chalices and 
Patens. Rev. A. J. Schulte. net, 1 50 

Complete Office of Holy Week. 0.50; cheap edition o 25 
Correct Thing for Catholics. Lelia Hardin Bugg. net, o 75 
Devotion of the Holy Rosary and the Five Scapulars, net, o 75 
Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Noldin, S. J. 

net, 1 25 
Devotions and Prayers for the Sick-Room. Krebs, C.SS.R. 

net, 1 25 
Devotion and Prayers of St. Alphonsus. net, 1 25 

Devotions for First Friday. Huguet. net, o 40 

Dignity and Duties of the Priest. Liguori. net, 1 50 

Dignity, Authority, Duties of Parents, Ecclesiastical and 
Civil Powers. Miiller, C.SS.R. net, 1 40 

Divine Grace. Wirth. net, 1 60 

Divine Office: Explanations of the Psalms and Canticles. 
Liguori. net, 1 50 

Epistles and Gospels. Large Print. net, o 25 

Eucharist and Penance. Miiller, C.SS.R. net, 1 10 

Eucharistic Christ. Tesniere. net, 1 25 

Eucharistic Gems. Coelenbier. net, o 75 

Explanation of Commandments, Illustrated. net, 1 00 

Explanation of the Apostles' Creed, Illustrated, net, 1 00 
Explanation of the Baltimore Catechism of Christian Doc- 
trine. Kinkead. net, 1 00 
Explanation of the Commandments. Miiller, C.SS.R. 

net, 1 10 
Explanation of the Gospels and of Catholic Worship. Lam- 
bert. Paper, 0.30; 25 copies, 4 50 
Cloth, 0.60; 25 copies, 9 00 
Explanation of the Holy Sacraments, Illustrated, net, 1 00 
Explanation of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. Cochem. 

net, 1 25 

Explanation of the Our Father and the Hail Mary. Bren- 

nan. net, 75 

Explanation of the Prayers and Ceremonies of the Mass, 

Illustrated. Rev. D. I. Lanslots, O.S.B. net, 1 25 

Explanation of the Salve Regina. Liguori. net, o 75 

Explanation and Application of Bible History. Edited by 

Rev. John J. Nash, D.D. net, 1 60 

Extreme Unction. Paper, 0.10; 100 copies, 6 00 

First and Greatest Commandment. Miiller, C.SS.R. net, 1 40 

First Communicant's Manual. o 50 

Flowers of the Passion. By Rev. Louis Th, de Jesus-Agoni- 

sant o 50 



Following of Christ. Thomas a Kempis. 

With Reflections, O 50 

Without Reflections, o 45 

Edition de luxe, 1 25 

Four Last Things, The. Death, Judgment, Heaven. Hell. Med- 
itations. Father M. v. Cochem. Cloth, net, o 75 
Garland of Prayer. With Nuptial Mass. Leather. o 90 
General Confession Made Easy. Konings, C.SS.R. Flexible, 
0.15; 100 copies, 10 00 
General Principles of the Religious Life. Verheyen. 

net, o 30 
Glories of Divine Grace. Scheeben. net, 1 60 

Glories of Mary. Liguori. 2 vols. net, 3 00 

Popular ed., 1 vol., net, 1 25 

Glories of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, The. Rev. M. Han- 
shew, S.J. net, 1 25 
God the Teacher of Mankind. Miiller. 9 vols. Per set, 9 50 
Goffine's Devout Instructions. 140 Illustrations. Cloth, 1 00 
25 copies, 17 50 
Golden Sands. Little Counsels. 

Third, fourth and fifth series. each, net, o 50 

Grace and the Sacraments. Miiller, C.SS.R. net, 1 2$ 

Great Means of Salvation and Perfection. Liguori. net, 1 50 
Great Supper of God, The. Coube, S.J. Cloth, net, 1 25 

Greetings to the Christ-Child. Poems. Illustrated. o 60 

Guide to Confession and Communion. net, o 50 

Handbook of the Christian Religion, Wilmers, S.J. 

net, 1 50 
Harmony of the Religious Life. Heuser. net, 1 25 

Help for the Poor Souls in Purgatory. net, o 50 

Helps to a Spiritual Life. Schneider, S.J. net, 1 25 

Hidden Treasure. By St. Leonard of Port Maurice, net, 50 
History of the Mass. O'Brien. net, 1 25 

Holy Eucharist. Liguori. net, 1 50 

Holy Mass. Miiller, C.SS.R. net, 1 25 

Holy Mass. Liguori. net, 1 50 

How to Comfort the Sick. Krebs, C.SS.R. net, 1 25 

How to Make the Mission. By a Dominican Father. Paper, 
0.10; per 100, 5 00 

Illustrated Prayer-Book for Children. 0.25 

Imitation of Christ. See " Following of Christ." 
Imitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Bennett-Gladstone. 
Plain Edition, net, o 50 

Edition de luxe, net, 1 50 

Imitation of the Sacred Heart. Arnoudt, S.J. net, 1 25 

Immaculate Conception, The. Lambing, LL.D. o 35 

Incarnation, Birth, and Infancy of Jesus Christ; or, The 
Mysteries of Faith. Liguori. net, 1 50 

Indulgences, A Practical Guide to. Bernad, O.M.I, net, o 75 
In Heaven We Know Our Own. Blot, S.J. net, 60 

Instructions and Prayers for the Catholic Father. Egger. 

net, o 50 

Instructions and Prayers for the Catholic Mother. Right 

Rev. Dr. A. Egger. net, o 50 

Instructions and Prayers for Catholic Youth. net, o 50 

Instructions for First Communicants. Schmitt. net, o 60 



net, 


i 


50 







25 


net, 





75 







35 




17 


SO 







25 




18 


oo 







25 


net, 





25 




20 


00 


net, 





25 




20 


GO 







05 




2 


50 



Instructions On the Commandments of God and the Sacraments 

of the Church. Liguori 

Paper, 0.25; 100 copies, 12 50 

Cloth, 0.40; 100 copies, 24 00 

Interior of Jesus and Mary. Grou. 2 vols. net, 2 00 

Introduction to a Devout Life. By St. Francis de Sales. 

Cloth, net, o 50 

Lessons of the King. By a Religious of The Society of Tha 
Holy Child Jesus. o 60 

Letters of St. Alphonsus de Liguori. 4 vols., each vol., 

net, 1 50 
Letters of St. Alphonsus Liguori and General Alphabetical 

Index to St. Alphonsus' Works. 
Little Altar Boys' Manual. 
Little Book of Superiors. " Golden Sands." 
Little Child of Mary. A Small Prayer-Book. 

100 copies, 
Little Manual of St. Anthony. Lasance. 
Illustrated, 
per 100, 
Little Manual of St. Joseph. Lings. 
Little Month of May. McMahon. Flexible, 

100 copies, 
Little Month of the Souls in Purgatory. 

100 copies, 
Little Office of the Immaculate Conception. 

per 100, 
Little Pictorial Lives of the Saints. New, cheap edition, 

net, 1 25 
Lives of the Saints. Large Size 1 50 

Lover of Souls, The. Short Conferences on the Sacred Heart. 
Rev. Henry Brinkmeyer. net, 1 00 

Manual of the Holy Eucharist. Lasance. net, o 75 

Manual of the Holy Family. net, o 60 

Manual of the Holy Name. o 50 

Manual of the Sacred Heart, New. 50 

Manual of the Sodality of the Blessed Virgin. o 50 

Manual of St. Anthony, Little. o 25 

Manual of St. Anthony, New. o 60 

Manual of St. Joseph, Little. Lings. o 25 

Marls Corolla. Poems by Father Edmund. Cloth, net, 1 25 
Mary the Queen. By a Religious of The Society of The Holy 
Child Jesus. o 60 

Mass Devotions and Readings. Lasance. Cloth, net, 75 
May Devotions, New. Wirth, O.S.B. net, 1 00 

Meditations for all the Days of the Year. Hamon, S.S. 5 
vols., net. 5 00 

Mediatations for Every Day in the Year. Baxter, net, 1 50 
Meditations for Every Day in the Year. Yercruysee, 2 
vols., net, 3 50 

Meditations for Retreats. St. Francis de Sales. Cloth, 

net, o 75 
Meditations on the Four Last Things. Cochem. net, o 75 
Meditations on the Last "Words from the Cross. Perraud. 

net, o 50 

Meditations on the Life, the Teachings, and the Passion op 

Jesus Christ. Ilg-Clarke. 2 vols., net, 3 50 



Meditations on the Month of Our Lady. Mullaney. net, o 75 
Meditations on the Passion of Our Lord. o 50 

Method of Christian Doctrine, Spirago's. net, 1 50 

Middle Ages, The: Sketches and Fragments. Shanan. 

net, 2 00 
Miscellany. Historical Sketch of the Congregation of the Most 
Holy Redeemer. Liguori. net, 1 50 

Mission Book for the Married. Girardey, C.SS.R. o 50 

Mission Book for the Single. Girardey, C.SS.R. o 50 

Mission Book of the Redemptorist Fathers. o 50 

Moments Before the Tabernacle. Russell, S.J. net, o 50 

Month, New, of the Sacred Heart. St. Francis de Sales. 

net, o 25 
Month of May: Meditations on the Blessed Virgin. Debussi, 
S.J. net, o 50 

Month of the Souls in Purgatory, " Golden Sands." net, o 25 
Moral Briefs. Stapleton. net, 1 25 

Most Holy Rosary. Meditations. Cramer, D.D. net, o 50 

My First Communion: Happiest Day of My Life. Brennan. 

net, o 75 
My Little Prayer-Book. Illustrated. o 12 

New May Devotions. Wirth. net, 1 o« 

New Month of the Holy Angels. net, o 25 

New Month of the Sacred Heart. net, o 25 

New Sunday-School Companion. o 25 

New Testament. Cheap Edition. 

32mo, flexible cloth, net, o 15 

32mo, lambskin, limp, round corners, gilt edges, net, o 75 
New Testament. Illustrated Edition. 

i6mo, Printed in two colors, with 100 full-page ill., net, o 60 
i6mo, Rutland Roan, limp, solid gold edges, net, 1 25 

New Testament. India Paper Edition. 

American Seal, limp, round corners, gilt edges, net, o 90 

German Morocco, limp, round corners, gilt edges, net t 1 20 
Best Calf limp, round corners, gold edges, gold, roll inside. 

net, 1 50 
New Testament. Large Print Edition. 

i2mo, large, . net, o 75 

i2mo, American Seal, limp, gold edges, net, 1 50 

New Testament Studies. Conaty, D.D. i2mo. o 60 

Off to Jerusalem. Marie Agnes Benziger. net, 1 00 

Office, Complete, of Holy Week. 50 

Cheap Edition. Cloth, cut flush, o 25 

On the Road to Rome. By W. Richards. net, o 50 

Our Favorite Devotions. Lings. o 75 

Our Favorite Novenas. Lings. net, o 75 

Our Lady of Good Counsel in Genazzano. Dillon, D.D. 

net, o 75 
Our Monthly Devotions. Lings. net, 1 25 

Our Own Will and How to Detect It in Our Actions. Rev. 
John Allen, D.D. net, o 75 

Paradise on Earth Open to all. Natale, S.J. net, o 50 

Parish Priest on Duty, The. Heuser. net, o 60 

Passion, A Few Simple and Business-Like Ways of Devotion 
to the. Hill, C.P. 0.25; per 100, 15 00 

Passion and Death of Jesus Christ. Liguori. net, 1 50 

Passion Flowers. Poems. Father Edmund. net, 1 25 



3 


75 


6 


00 


6 


00 


. Paper, 


3 


75 


6 


oo 


net, i 


50 


net, i 


50 



Thoughts and Affections on the Passion for Every Day of 
the Year. Bergamo. net, 2 00 

Pearls from Faber. Brunowe. net, o 50 

Pearls of Prayer. o 35 

Pepper and Salt, Spiritual. Stang. Paper, 0.30; 25 copies, 

4 50 

Cloth, 0.60; 25 copies, 9 00 

Perfect Religious, The. De la Motte. Cloth, net, 1 00 

Pictorial Lives of the Saints. 8vo, net, 2 00 

Pious Preparation for First Holy Communion. Lasance. 

Cloth, net, 75 

Pocket Manual. A Vest-pocket Prayer-Book, very large type. 

25 
Popular Instructions on Marriage. Girardey, C.SS.R. 
Paper, 0.25; 25 copies, 
Cloth, 0.40; 25 copies, 
Popular Instructions on Prayer. Girardey, C.SS.R. 

Paper, 0.25; 25 copies, $3 75. Cloth, 0.40; 25 copies, 
Popular Instructions to Parents. Girardey, C.SS.R. 
0.25; 25 copies, 
Cloth, 0.40; 25 copies, 
Prayer-Book for Religious. Lasance. 
Preaching. Vol. XV. Liguori. 

Preparation for Death. Liguori. net, 1 50 

Prodigal Son; or, The Sinner's Return to God. net, 1 00 

Reasonableness of Catholic Ceremonies and Practices. 

Burke. o 35 

Religious State, The. Liguori. net, o 50 

Rosary, The, the Crown of Mary. By a Dominican Father. 

o 10 

per 100, 5 00 

Rosary, The: Scenes and Thoughts. Garesche, S.J. net, o 50 

Rosary, The Most Holy. Meditations. Cramer. net, o 50 

Sacramentals of the Holy Catholic Church. Lambing, D.D. 

Paper, 0.30; 25 copies, 4 50) 

Cloth, 0.60; 25 copies, 9 o^ 

Sacramentals — Prayer, etc. Miiller, C.SS.R. net, 1 oo> 

Sacred Heart Book, The. Lasance. net, 75 

Sacred Heart, Devotion to, for First Friday of Every Month. 

Huguet. net, 40 

Sacred Heart, New Manual of. o 5a 

Sacrifice of the Mass Worthily Celebrated, The. Chaig- 

non, S.J. net, 1 50 

Saint Francis of Assissi. By Rev. Leo L. Dubois, S.M. 

net, 1 00 
Secret of Sanctity. St. Francis de Sales. net, 1 00 

Seraphic Guide, The. By a Franciscan Father. 60 

Short Conferences on the Little Office of the Immaculate 
Conception. Rainer. net, o 50 

Short Stories on Christian Doctrine. McMahon. net, 1 00 
Short Visits to the Blessed Sacrament. Lasance. o 25 

100, 18 00 

Sick Calls; Chapters on Pastoral Medicine. Mulligan, net, 1 00 
Socialism and Christianity. Stang, D.D. net, 1 00 

Sodalists' Vade Mecum. o 50 

Songs and Sonnets. Maurice Francis Egan. net, 1 00 

Spirit of Sacrifice, The. Thurston, net, 2 00 



Spiritual Despondency and Temptations. Michel, S.J. 

net, i 25 
Spiritual Exercises for a Ten Days' Retreat. Smetana, 

C.SS.R. net, 1 00 

Spiritual Pepper and Salt. Stang. Paper, 0.30; 25 copies, 

4 50 

Cloth, 0.60; 25 copies. 9 00 

St. Anthony, New Manual of. o 60 

St. Anthony. Keller. net, 75 

St. Francis of Assissi,, Social Reformer. Dubois, S.M. 

net, 1 00 
Stations of the Cross. Illustrated. o 50 

Stories for First Communicants. Keller, D.D. net, o 50 

Striving after Perfection. Bayma, S.J. net, 1 00 

Sure Way to a Happy Marriage. Taylor. 

Paper, 0.25; 25 copies, 3 75 

Cloth, 0.40; 25 copies. 6 00 

Talks with the Little Ones about the Apostles' Creed. 
By a Religious of The Society of The Holy Child Jesus. 

o 60 
Thoughts and Counsels for the Consideration of Catholic 
Young Men. Doss, S.J. net, 1 25 

Thoughts for All Times. Mgr. Vaughan. o 90 

True Politeness. Demore. net, o 75 

True Spouse of Jesus Christ. Liguori. 2 vols. net, 3 00 

The same, one-vol. edition, net, 1 25 

Two Spiritual Retreats for Sisters. Zollner. net, 1 00 

Veneration of the Blessed Virgin. Rohner, O.S.B. net, 1 25 
Vest-Pocket Gems of Devotion. o 20 

Victories of the Martyrs. Vol. IX. Liguori. net, 1 50 

Visits, Short, to the Blessed Sacrament. Lasance. o 25 

Visits to Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. By the Author 
of " Ave Spirituels." net, o 50 

Visits to Jesus in the Tabernacle. Lasance. Cloth, net, 1 25 
Visits to the Most Holy Sacrament and to the Blessed virgin 

Mary. Liguori. 
Vocations Explained. Vincentian Father. 

100 copies, 
Way of Interior Peace. De Lehen, S.J. 
Way of Salvation and Perfection. Meditations, 

flections, Spiritual Treatises. Liguori. 
Way of the Cross. Paper, 0.05; 100 copies, 
What the Church Teaches. Drury, 
Paper, 0.30; 25 copies, 
Cloth, 0.60; 25 copies, 

JUVENILES. 

An Adventure with the Apaches. Ferry 

Armorer of Solingen. Herchenbach. 

As true as Gold. Mannix. 

Berkleys, The. Wight. 

Bistouri. Melandri. 

Black Lady, and Robin Red Breast. Schmid. 

Blissylvania Post-Office. Taggart. 

Bob o* Link. Waggaman. 

Boys in the Block. Egan. o 25 



net, 


, 50 




10 




6 00 


net, 


1 50 


*ioui 


s Re- 


net, 


1 50 




2 S3 




4 5° 




9 00 




O 45 




45 




45 




45 




45 




25 




45 




45 



Bunt and Bill. Mulholland. o 45 

Buzzer's Christmas. Waggaman. 25 

By Branscome River. Taggart. o 45 

Cake and the Easter Eggs. Schmid. o 25 

Canary Bird. Schmid. o 45 

Carroll Dare. Waggaman. 1 25 
Cave by the Beech Fork. The. Spalding, S.J. Cloth, o 85 

The Children of Cupa. Mannix. o 45 

Charlie Chittywick. Bearne, S.J. o 85 

College Boy, A. Anthony Yorke, Cloth. o 85 
Copus, Rev. J. E., S.J. 

Harry Russell. o 85 

Shadows Lifted. o 85 

St. Cuthbert's. o 85 

Tom Losely: Boy. o 85 

Daughter of Kings, A. Hinkson. 1 25 

Dimpling's Success. Clara Mulholland. o 45 

Double Knot, A, and Other Stories. Waggaman and Others. 

1 25 

Ethelred Preston. Finn, S.J. o 85 

Every-Day Girl, An. Crowley. o 45 

Fatal Diamonds. Donnelly. o 25 

Finn, Rev. F. J., S.J.: 

His First and Last Appearance. Illustrated. 1 00 

That Football Gai^e. o 85 

The Best Foot Forward. o 85 

Ethelred Preston. o 85 

Claude Lightfoot. o 85 

Harry Dee. o 85 

Tom Playfair. o 85 

Percy Wynn. o 85 

Mostly Boys. o 85 

Five O'Clock Stories; or, The Old Tales Told Again. o 75 

Flower of the Flock, The. Egan. o 85 

For the White Rose. Hinkson. o 45 

Fred's Little Daughter. Smith. o 45 

Godfrey the Hermit. Schmid. o 25 

Golden Lily, The. Hinkson. o 45 

Great Captain, The. Hinkson. o 45 

Haldeman Children, The. Mannix. o 45 

Harry Dee; or, Working It Out. Finn. o 85 

Harry Russell, A Rockland College Boy. Copus, S.J. [Cuth- 

bert]. o 85 

Heir of Dreams, An. O'Malley. o 45 

His First and Last Appearance. Finn. 1 00 

Hop Blossoms. Schmid. o 25 

Hostage of War, A. Bonesteel. o 45 

How They Worked Their Way. Egan. o 75 

Inundation, The. Schmid. o 45 

" Jack." By a Religious of the Society of the Holy Child 

Jesus. o 45 

Jack Hildreth Among the Indians. 2 vols. Each, o 85 

Jack Hildreth on the Nile. Taggart. Cloth, o 85 

Jack O'Lantern. Waggaman. o 45 

Juvenile Round Table. First Series. Stories by the Best 

Writers. 1 00 

Juvenile Round Table. Second Series. 1 00 

8 



Juvenile Round Table. Third Series. i oo 

Klondike Picnic. Donnelly. o 85 

Lamp of the Sanctuary. Wiseman. o 25 
Legends of the Holy Child Jesus from Many Lands. Lutz. 

o 75 
Little Missy. Waggaman. o 45 
Loyal Blue and Royal Scarlet. Taggart. o 85 
Madcap Set at St. Anne's. Brunowe. o 45 
Mary Tracy's Fortune. Sadlier o 45 
Master Fridolin. Giehrl. o 25 
Milly Aveling. Smith. Cloth. o 85 
More Five O'Clock Stories In Prose and Verse. By a Re- 
ligious of the Society of the Holy Child Jesus. o 75 
Mostly Boys. Finn. o 85 
Mysterious Doorway. Sadlier. o 45 
Mystery of Hornby Hall. Sadlier. o 85 
My Strange Friend. Finn. o 25 
Nan Nobody. Waggaman. o 45 
Old Charlmont's Seed-Bed. Smith. o 45 
Old Robber's Castle. Schmid. o 25 
One Afternoon and Other Stories. Taggart. 1 25 
Our Boys' and Girls' Library. 14 vols. Each. o 25 
Overseer of Mahlbourg. Schmid. o 25 
Pancho and Panchita. Mannix. o 45 
Pauline Archer. Sadlier. o 45 
Pickle and Pepper. Dorsey. o 85 
Playwater Plot, The. Waggaman. o 60 
Ridingdale Boys, The. Bearne, S.J. 2 volumes, each, 85 
Queen's Page. Hinkson. o 45 
The Race for Copper Island. Spalding, S.J. o 85 
Recruit Tommy Collins. Mary G. Bonesteel. o 45 
Rose Bush. Schmid. o 25 
Round the World. Vol. I. Travels. o 85 
Saint Cuthbert's. Copus, S.J. o 85 
Sea-Gull's Rock. Sandeau. o 45 
Senior Lieutenant's Wager, The. 30 Short Stories, 1 25 
Shadows Lifted. Copus, S.J. o 85 
Sheriff of the Beech Fork, The. Spalding, S.J. o 85 
Spalding, S.J. 

Cave by the Beech Fork. o 85 

Sheriff of the Beech Fork, The. o 85 

The Race for Copper Island. o 85 

Strong-Arm of Avalon. Waggaman. o 85 

Summer at Woodville. Sallier. o 45 
Tales and Legends of the Middle Ages. De Cappella. o 75 

Tales and Legends Series. 3 vols. Each, o 75 

Talisman, The. Sadlier. 60 

Taming of Polly. Dorsey. o 85 

Three Girls and Especially One. Taggart. o 45 

Three Little Kings. Giehrl. o 25 

Tom's Lucxpot. Waggaman. o 45 

TOORALLADY. Walsh. O 45 

Trail of the Dragon, The, and Other Stories. By Best 

Writers. i 25 

Transplanting of Tessie, The. Waggaman. o 60 

Treasure of Nugget Mountain. Taggart. o 85 

Two Little Girls. Mack. o 45 



Violin Maker, The. Smith. o 45 

Wager of Gerald O'Rourke, The. Finn-Thiele. net, o 35 

Wayward Winnifred. Sadlier. o 85 
Where the Road Led, and Other Stories. Sadlier, and 

Others. 1 25 

Winnetou, the Apache Knight. Taggart, o 85 

Wrongfully Accused. Herchenbach. o 45 

Young Color Guard, The. Bonesteel. o 45 

NOVELS AND STORIES. 

Carroll Dare. Waggaman. 1 25 

Circus Rider's Daughter, The. F. v. Brackel. 1 25 

Connor D'Arcy's Struggles. Bertholds. 1 25 

Corinne's Vow. Waggaman. 1 25 

Dion and the Sibyls, A Classic Novel. Keon. Cloth, 1 25 
Dollar Hunt, The. Martin. o 45 

Fabiola. By Cardinal Wiseman. Popular Illustrated Edition. 

90 
Fabiola's Sister9. Clarke. 1 25 
Fatal Beacon, The. By F. v. Brackel. 1 25 
Hearts of Gold. Edhor. 1 25 
Heiress of Cronenstein, The, Countess Hahn-Hahn. 1 25 
Her Blind Folly. Holt. 1 25 
Her Father's Daughter. Hinkson. net, 1 25 
Idols; or, The Secret of the Rue Chaussee d'Antin, De Navery. 

1 25 
In the Days of King Hal. Taggart # net, 1 25 
" Kind Hearts and Coronets." Harrison. 1 25 
Let Xo Man Put Asunder. Marie. 1 00 
Linked Lives. Douglas. 1 50 
Marcella Grace. Mulholland. Illustrated Edition. 1 25 
Miss Erin. Francis. 1 25 
Monk's Pardon, The. de Navery. 1 25 
Mr. Billy Buttons. Lecky. 1 25 
Not a Judgment. By Keon. 1 25 
Other Miss Lisle, The. Martin. 1 25 
Out of Bondage. Holt. 1 25 
Outlaw of Camargue, The. de Lamothe. 1 25 
Passing Shadows. A Novel. Yorke. 1 25 
Pere Monnier's Ward. A Novel. Lecky. 1 25 
Pilkington Heir, The. A Novel. Sadlier. 1 25 
Prodigal's Daughter, The. Begg. 1 00 
Red Inn of St. Lyphar, The. By Anna T. Sadlier. 1 25 
Romance of a Playwright, de Bornier. 1 00 
Round Table of the Representative American Catholic 

Novelists. i 50 

Round Table of the Representative French Catholic Novel- 
ists. 1 5° 
Round Table of the Representative German Catholic 
Novelists. Illustrated. 1 50 
Round Table of the Representative Irish and English Cath- 
olic Novelists. i 50 
Ruler of The Kingdom, The. Keon. 1 25 
Soggarth Aroon, The. Guinan, C.C. 1 25 
That Man's Daughter. Ross. i 25 
Training of Silas, The. Devine, S.S. 1 25 

xo 



True Story of Master Gerard, The. Sadlier. i 25 

Unraveling of a Tangle, The. Taggart. 1 25 

Vocation of Edward Conway. Egan. 1 25 

Way that Led Beyond, The. Harrison. 1 25 

Woman of Fortune, A. Reid. 1 25 

World Well Lost. Robertson. o 75 

LIVES AND HISTORIES. 

Autobiography of St. Ignatius Loyola. O'Conor. Cloth, 

net, i 25 
Anglican Ordinations. Semple, S.J. net, o 35 

Bad Christian, The, Hunolt. 2 vols. net, 5 00 

Bible Stories for Little Children. Paper, 0.10. Cloth, 

o 20 
Business Guide for Priests. Stang. 1 00 

Church History. Businger. o 75 

Christian's Last End, The. Sermons. Hunolt, S.J. 2 vols. 

net, 5 00 
Christian's Model, The. Sermons. Hunolt, S.J. 2 vols. 

net, 5 00 
Christian State of Life, The. Sermons. Hunolt, S.J. 2 

vols., net, 5 00 

Colden Bells in Convent Towers. Story of Father Samuel 

and Saint Clara. net, 1 00 

Historiography Ecclestastica quam Historiae seriam Solidam- 

que Operam Navantibus, Accommodavit Guil. Stang, D.D. 

net, 1 00 
History of the Catholic Church. Brueck. 2 vols, net, 3 00 
History of the Catholic Church. Shea. net, 1 50 

History of the Protestant Reformation in England and 

Ireland. Cobbett. Cloth, net, o 75 

Letters of St. Alphonsus Liguori. Grimm, C.SS.R. 5 vols., 

Each, net, 1 50 

Life and Life-Work of Mother Theodore Guerin, Foundress 

of the Sisters of Providence at St.-Mary-of-the-Woods, Vigo 

County, Indiana. net, 2 00 

Life of Blessed Virgin. Illustrated. Cochem. net, 1 25 

Life of Ven. Mary Crescentia Hoess. Degman, O.S.F. 

net, 1 25 
Life of Saint Vincent de Paul. Maloy, C.M. 

Paper, o 25 

Cloth, o 35 

Life of Christ. Illustrated. Cochem. net, 1 2$ 

Life of Fr. Francis Poilvache, C.SS.R. Paper, net, o 20 

Life of Most Rev. John Hughes. Brann. net, o 75 

Life of Sister Anne Katherine Emmerich, of the Order of St. 

Augustine. Wegener, O.S.A. net, 1 75 

Life of St. Anthony. Ward. Illustrated. net, o 75 

Life of St. Catharine of Sienna, Ayrae, M.D. 1 00 

Little Lives of Saints for Children. Illustrated. Cloth, 

o 60 
Little Pictorial Lives of the Saints. net, 1 25 

Lourdes — Its Inhabitants, Its Pilgrims, and Its Miracles. 

Clarke, S.J. net, 1 00 

Middle Ages, The. Rev. Thos. J. Shahan, S.I.D.J.U.L. 2 00 

11 



Our Lady of Good Counsel in Genazzano. net, o 75 

Outlines of Jewish History. Gigot, S.S. net, 1 50 

Outlines of New Testament History. Gigot, S.S. net, 1 50 

Patron Saints for Catholic Youth. Illustrated. o 60 

Pictorial Lives of the Saints. Cloth, net, 2 00 

Reminiscences of Rt. Rev. E. P. Wadhams. net, 1 00 

Sheaf of Golden Years, A. Mary Constance Smith, net, 1 00 

net, 1 00 

Sheaf of Golden Years, A. Smith. net, 1 00 

St. Anthony, The Saint of the Whole World. net, o 75 

Story of Jesus. Illustrated. o 60 

Story of the Divine Child. Lings. o 60 

Victories of the Martyrs. Liguori. net, 1 50 

Visit to Europe and the Holy Land. Fairbanks. 1 50 

THEOLOGY, LITURGY, SERMONS, SCIENCE, AND 
PHILOSOPHY. 

Abridged Sermons, for All Sundays of the Year. Liguori. 
Grimm, C.SS.R. net, 1 50 

Across Widest America. Rev. A. J. Devinie, S.J. 1 5° 

Benziger's Magazine. per year, 2 00 

Blessed Sacrament, Sermons on the. Edited by Lasance. 

net, 1 50 
Breve Compendium Theologiae Dogmaticae et Moralis. 

Berthier. net, 2 50 

Cantata Catholica. B. H. F. Hellebusch. net, 2 00 

CerBmonial for Altar Boys. Rev. Matthew Britt, O.S.B. 

net, o 35 
Children of Mary, Sermons for the. Callerio. net, 1 50 

Children's Masses, Sermons for. Frassinetti-Lings. 

net, 1 50 
Christian Apologetics. Devivier, S.J. net, 2 oo 

Christian Philosophy: God. Driscoll. net, 1 50 

Christ in Type and Prophecy. Maas, S.J. 2 vols., net, 4 00 
Church Treasurer's Pew-Collection and Receipt Book. 

net, 1 oo 
Compendium Juris Canonici. Smith. net, 2 00 

Compendium Juris Regularium. Edidit P. Aug. Bachofen, 

net, 2 50 
Compendium Sacrae Liturgiae Juxta Ritum Romanum, 

Wapelhorst. Editio sexta emendatior. net, 2 50 

Compendium Theologiae Dogmaticae et Moralis. Berthier. 

net, 2 50 
Confessional, The. Right Rev. A. Roeggl, D.D. net, 1 00 
Data of Modern Ethics Examined. Rev. John J. Mina, S. J. 

2 00 
De Philosophia Morali Praelectiones. Russo. net, 2 00 

Diary, Order and Note-Book. 

Cloth. net, o 75 

Flexible Leather, net, 1 25 

Ecclesiastical Dictionary. Rev. John Thein. net, 5 00 

Elements of Ecclesiastical Law. Rev. S. B, Smith, D.D. 
Ecclesiastical Persons. net, 2 50 

Ecclesiastical Punishments. net, 2 50 

Ecclesiastical Trials. net, 2 50 

12 



Elocution Class. Eleanor O'Grady. net, o 56 

Encyclical Letters of Pope Leo XIII. net, 2 2$ 

Funeral Sermons. Rev. Aug. Wirth, O.S.B. 2 vols., net, 2 00 
General Introduction to the Study of Holy Scriptures. 

Gigot, S.S. Cloth, net, 2 50 

General Introduction to the Study of Holy Scriptures. 

Abridged Edition. Rev. Francis E. Gigot, S.S. net, 1 50 
God Knowable and Known. Ronayne, S.J. net, 1 50 

Good Christian, The. Allen, D.D. 2 vols., net, 5 00 

History of the Mass. O'Brien. net, 1 25 

Hunolt's Sermons. 12 vols., net, 25 00 

Hunolt's Short Sermons. 5 vols., net, 10 00 

Hymn. Book of Sunday School Companion. o 35 

Introduction to the Study of the Scriptures. Gigot. 

net, 1 50 
Introduction to the Study of the Old Testament. Vols. I. 

and II. Gigot. net, 1 50 

Jesus Living in the Priest. Millet-Byrne. net, 2 00 

Last Things, Sermons on the Four. Hunolt. 2 vols. 

net, 5 00 
Lenten Sermons. Edited by Wirth, O.S.B. net, 2 00 

Liber Status Animarum. Pocket Edition, net, 0.25; half 

leather, net, 2 00 

Marriage Process in the United States. Smith. net, 2 50 
Moral Principles and Medical Practice, the Basis of Medicai. 

Jurisprudence. Coppens, S.J. net, 1 oa 

Medulla Fundamentalis Theologiae Moralis. Auctore Gu- 

lielmo Stang. net, 1 00 

Mores Catholici or Ages of Faith. By Digby. 4 vols. 25 00 
Natural Law and Legal Practice. Holaind, S.J. net, 2 00 
New and Old Sermons. Wirth, O.S.B. 8 vols., net. 16 00 
Outlines of Dogmatic Theology. Hunter, S. J. 3 vols., 

net, 4 50 
Outlines of Jewish History. Gigot, S.S. net, 150 

Outlines of New Testament History. Gigot. Cloth, 

net, 1 50 
Outlines of Sermons for Young Men and Young Women. 

net, 2 00 
Pastoral Theology. Stang, D.D. net, 1 50 

Penance, Sermons on. Hunolt. 2 vols., net, 5 00 

Penitent Christian, The. Sermons. Hunolt. 2 vols., 

net, 5 00 
Pew-Rent Receipt Book. net, 1 00 

Phuosophia de Morali. Russo. net, 2 00 

Political and Moral Essays. Rickaby, S.J. net, 1 50 

Praxis Synodalis. Manuale Synodi Diocesanae ac Provincialis 

Celebrandae. net, o 75 

Priest in the Pulpit, The. Suelbemann. net, 1 50 

Readings and Recitations for Juniors. O'Grady. net, o 50 
Record of Baptisms. 14x10 Inches, 3 Styles. 
Record of Marriages. 14x10 Inches, 3 Styles. 
Registrum Baptismorum. net, 3 50 

Registrum Matrimoniorum. net, 3 50 

Relation of Experimental Psychology to Philosophy. Mgr. 

Mercier. net, o 35 

Eights of Our Little Ones. Conway, S.J. 0.10; per 100, 

7 50 

13 



Rituale Compendiosum seu Ordo Administrandi quaedam Sacra- 

menta et alia Officia Ecclesiastica Rite Peragendi ex Rituali 

Romano, novissime editio desumptas. net, o 90 

Sanctuary Boys' Illustrated Manual. McCallen. net, o 50 

Select Recitations for Catholic Schools and Academies. 

Eleanor O'Grady. 1 00 

Sermons, Abridged, for Sundays. Liguori. net, 1 25 

Sermons for Children of Mary. Callerio. net, 1 50 

Sermons for Children's Masses. Frassinetti-Lings. net 1 50 
Sermons for the Sundays and Chief Festivals of the Eccle- 
siastical Year. Pottgeisser, S.J. a vols. net, 2 50 
Sermons from the Latins. Baxter. net, 2 00 
Sermons, Funeral. Wirth. 2 vols. net, 2 00 
Sermons, Hunolt's. 12 vols. net, 25 00 
Sermons, Hunolt's Short. 5 vols. net, 10 00 
Sermons, Lenten. Wirth. net, 2 00 
Sermons, New and Old. Wirth. 8 vols. net, 16 00 
Sermons on Devotion to Sacred Heart. Bierbaum. 

net, o 75 
Sermons on Our Lord, the Blessed Virgin and the Saints. 
Hunolt. 2 vols. 5 00 

Sermons on the Blessed Sacrament. Scheurer-Lasance. 

net, 1 50 
Sermons on the Rosary. Frings. net, 1 00 

Sermons on the Seven Deadly Sins. 2 vols. net, 5 00 

Sermons on Penance. Hunolt. 2 vols. 5 00 

Sermons on the Christian Virtues. Hunolt. 2 vols. 5 00 
Sermons on the Different States of Life. Hunolt. 2 vols. 

5 00 
Sermons on the Four Last Things. Hunolt. 2 vols. 5 00 
Short Sermons. Hunolt. 5 vols. 10 00 

Socialism: Its Theoretical "Basis and Practical Application. 
Victor Cathrein, S.J. 1 50 

Sursum Corda. Hymns. Cloth, 0.25; per 100, 15 00 

Sursum Corda^ With English and German Text. o 45 

Theory and Practice of the Confessional. Dr. E. Shieler, 
Professor Moral Theology. 3 50 

Synopsis Theologiae Dogmaticae. Tanquerey. S.S. 3 vols. 

net, 5 25 
Synopsis Theologia Moralis et Pastoralis. Tanquerey. 

3 vols. net, 5 25 

Theologia Dogmatica Specialis. Tanquerey. 2 vols. 

net, 3 50 

Views of Dante. By E. L. Rivard, CS. V. net, 1 25 

Vade Mecum Sacerdotum. Cloth, net, o 25 

Morocco, net, 50 

What Catholics Have Done for Science. M. S. Brennan. 



net, 1 00 



MISCELLANEOUS. 



A Gentleman. M". F. Egan, LL.D. net, o 75 

A Lady. Manners and Social Usages. Lelia Hardin Bugg. 

net, o 75 
Bone Rules; or, Skeleton of English Grammar. Tabb, A.M. 
Catholic Home Annual. Stories by Best Writers. o 25 

Correct Thing for Catholics, The. Lelia Hardin Bugg. 

net, 75 
*4 



Guide for Sacristans. net, © 85 

How to Get On. Rev. Bernard Feeney, net, 1 00 

Little Folks' Annual, o.io; per 100, 6 00 

PRAYER-BOOKS. 

Benziger Brothers publish the most complete line of prayer- 
books in this country. Catalogue will be sent free on ap- 
plication. 

SCHOOL BOOKS. 

Benziger Brothers' school text-books are considered to be 
the finest published. They embrace: New Century Cath- 
olic Readers. Illustrations in Colors. Catholic National 
Readers. Catechisms. History. Grammars. Speller*. 
Elocution. Charts. 



s/lc 

15 



A Home Library for $i Down. 

Original American Stories for the Young, by the Very Best 
Catholic Authors. 



20 



copyrighted books and a year's subscription to 
benziger's magazine (in itself a library of good reading). 



Regular Price of Books, . . . $11.70 \ Regular Price, 
Regular price of Benziger's Magazine, 2.00 ) $13.70. 

Special Net Price, $10.00. $1.00 Down. $1.00 a Month. 

You get the books at once, and have the use of them, while mak- 
ing easy payments. Send us only $1.00, and we will forward 
the books at once. $1.00 entitles you to immediate possession. 
No further payment need be made for a month. Afterward 
you pay $1.00 a month. 

ANOTHER EASY WAY OF GETTING BOOKS. 

Each year we publish four new Novels by the best Catholic 
authors. These novels are interesting beyond the ordinary; not 
religious, but Catholic in tone and feeling. 

We ask you to give us a Standing Order for these novels. 
The price is $1.25 a volume postpaid. The $5.00 is not to be 
paid at one time, but $1.25 each time a volume is published. 

As a Special Inducement for giving us a standing order for 
these novels, we will give you free a subscription to Benziger's 
Magazine. This Magazine is recognized as the best and hand- 
somest Catholic magazine published. The regular price of the 
Magazine is $2.00 a year. 

Thus for $5.00 a year — paid $1.25 at a time — you will get 
four good books and receive in addition free a year's subscrip- 
tion to Benziger's Magazine. The Magazine will be continued 
from to year to year, as long as the standing order for the 
novels is in force, which will be till countermanded. 

Send $1.25 for the first novel and get your name placed on 
the subscription list of Benizger's Magazine. 

BENZIGER BROTHERS, 

New York: Cincinnati: Chicago: 

36 and 38 Barclay 343 Main Street. 211 and 213 Madison 

Street. Street. 



16 



JUl 15 19" 



Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: Jan. 2006 

PreservationTechnologies 

A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATION 

1 1 1 Thomson Park Dnve 
Cranberry Township. PA 1606$ 
(724) 779-21 1 1 



One copy del. to Cat. Div. 



)Ui 18 Wl I 



LIBRARY OF 




CONGRESS 




017 354 434 



